Though people are quick to speculate on the downfall of the Kardashian empire, it’s worth remembering that there is no media cycle that Kim Kardashian will not elbow herself into: from casting PinkPantheress in her most recent Skims campaign to getting Ice Spice to perform a cameo on North’s TikTok account, and purchasing Princess Diana’s old necklace weeks after Prince Harry released his tell-all memoir. The current bout of discourse surrounding the failure of the Koalition was first prompted by Anna Wintour’s alleged Met Gala snub – a rumour which has already been disproven but that Kim brought to its knees when she acquired VIP access to Choupette (the cat Karl Lagerfeld left £1.3 million to in his will).
“Had a date with @choupetteofficiel in Paris. We then spent some time at @karllagerfeld’s office to get a little inspiration for the Met,” Kim captioned an Instagram carousel consisting of corniced ceilings and four-poster beds and blown-up portraits of Lagerfeld’s face. She also shared a photo of a wall scattered in the designer’s archival sketches, which isn’t so much a preview of her Met Gala look but proof of her invisible access into the most inaccessible corners of culture (lest we forget the priceless Marilyn Monroe dress). It also probably means she will be wearing Chanel… or Choupette. Or perhaps she will go as Kris Jenner – a woman who has undoubtedly fashioned her own vampiric look in that of Lagerfeld’s (sunglasses, stiff collars, a little blazer).
For celebrities as shrewd as the Kardashians, the Met Gala is a personal medium for brand storytelling – a photo on the steps of the Met is a moment to preserve their fame within the zeitgeist. It’s also a mutually beneficial agreement: Anna Wintour and Kim Kardashian are both reliant on each other for the success of their individual projects, which makes a stark difference from the years when Kim was seen as too trashy to be invited to the Met – perhaps that had something to do with when Lagerfeld called her “too public, too public”. The underdog narrative proved successful, though, and Kim’s proximity to the cultural elite (AKA Choupette) is confirmation of that tectonic shift in power, as if to say ‘You REALLY thought I wasn’t on the guest list? Do you know who I am?’
