Kylie Jenner defended over ‘horrific’ nipple detail on Met Gala dress
Kylie Jenner has turned heads at the Met Gala in a custom Schiaparelli gown, leaving fans very divided over one detail in particular.
This year's theme is 'Costume Art', with a formal dress code of 'Fashion is Art'.
For Jenner's interpretation, she decided to go for a nude corset with exaggerated faux nipples - a SKIMS favourite feature - with a satin skirt made to look like a dress being removed.
According to People, the skirt was embroidered with over 2,000 sating stitch balls, 10,000 natural baroque pearls and more that 7,000 painted pearlescent fish scales - a look that required around 11,000 hours of embroidery work.
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She also donned an antique silver necklace with rhinestones, pearls and hand-sculpted bird heads, with matching chandelier earrings.
It looks like it's paid off, though, as Jenner has certainly become centre of attention - though not everyone's agreed on her overall look.
"You can’t buy class!!" one person fumed on X after spotting the NSFW detail.
Someone else wrote: "This Kylie Jenner look is horrific, it looks like she forgot to pull up her dress."
A third wrote: "Kylie Jenner peeling her clothes off on the way to the Met Gala bathroom."
A fourth added: "Kylie Jenner looks a mess…"
However, many others thought the dress was one of the best looks of the night.
Defending the star, one said: "My take: she’s basically guaranteed a headline moment every Met - super styled, very camera-ready, and always built for maximum impact."
Another gushed: "I think this is the first time I'm really in love with one of Kylie Jenner's looks; this time she nailed it."
Her sister Kendall, meanwhile, wore a custom GapStudio dress designed by Zac Posen, which featured a very similar detail.
Her look was inspired by the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a Greek statue in the Louvre collection.
“The starting point was the Winged Victory of Samothrace - a powerful symbol of strength, femininity, and freedom," Posen told WWD.
"It’s timeless, an icon of femininity from the Hellenistic period that captures high-level realism and movement of space and air. It represents both power and fluidity, which felt incredibly relevant. Art isn’t static – it moves through time and continues to inspire."
Met Gala 2026 theme explained
We’ve seen some truly bonkers Met Gala looks in the past, but the celebs who attend are actually given a dress code, as well as an invitation to tailor their outfits to the event’s theme.
The Met Gala doubles as a launch event for the Costume Institute's spring exhibition, and the theme is generally aligned with that, along with a slightly more open-to-interpretation dress code.
This year’s theme is ‘Costume Art’, to tie in with a Costume Institute exhibition, which pairs paintings and sculptures with historical and contemporary clothes.
It looks to deal with ‘the centrality of the dressed body in the museum’s vast collection’.
The dress code is a bit more vague: Fashion is Art.
To me, that is even more anxiety-inducing than ‘smart-casual’. British Vogue says the dress code ‘encourages attendees to consider the many ways that designers use the body as their blank canvas’.
Previous themes and dress code have included:
2025
Theme: Superfine: Tailoring Black Style
Dress code: Tailored for You
2024
Theme: Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion
Dress code: The Garden of Time
2023
Theme: Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty
Dress code: In honour of Karl
Topics: Kylie Jenner, Met Gala, Celebrity
Jess Hardiman