Was Kendall Jenner the First to Wear Her Met Gala Look?

By Danya Issawi, a fashion news writer at the Cut.  She previously worked across the newsroom at the New York Times, including on the “Style” desk and the Pulitzer Prize-winning COVID-tracking team.

On last night’s Met Gala red carpet, Kendall Jenner wore an archival 1999 Givenchy dress, and, during an interview with La La Anthony on Vogue’s livestream, said she was the “first human” to wear it. “It showed on a mannequin,” Jenner said. “It’s a miracle we found it. It’s a miracle it fit. It just feels meant to be.” Several outlets picked up the news and went so far as to call Jenner a history breaker. But I’d like to invoke a 2019 proverb from Dakota Johnson to best represent what high-fashion Twitter thought of the look: “Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen.”

While Jenner did look very good in this archival pull, hard-core fashion stans clocked what they thought was some sort of miscommunication on the assembly line getting the model dressed for the event. Social-media accounts alleged that the dress had been worn before. An Instagram account dedicated to Alexander McQueen’s work, @McQueen_Vault, posted a photo of Winona Ryder in what appeared to be an identical garment. (McQueen was chief designer at Givenchy in 1999.) “Needed: Ocular replacements due to excessive eyerolls,” the account wrote on its next Instagram Story. High-fashion Twitter also began circulating the image of Ryder. Kim Russell, a stylist and creative director, tweeted, “Why would they lie that’s so fucking weird,” noting that she felt Givenchy was “old and too big to make silly stupid claims like that before fact checking.”

Perfect magazine then entered the chat with a post featuring Ryder and what looks to be the same garment. The caption read, “Givenchy Haute Couture dress Kendall Jenner wore to the Met Gala last night, designed by Alexander McQueen for Fall Winter 1999, worn by Winona Ryder and photographed by Warwick Saint for Flaunt Magazine in 1999.” Other images from the same shoot are for sale on the photographer’s website. But a source close to the brand told the Cut that the dress Ryder wore was a replica and that the McQueen dress on Jenner was, in fact, never worn.

At the end of the day: shrug. It seems we simply have another case of mistaken identity on our hands. As when Jenner calls herself a nerd. The sun will set, the world will continue to turn, and the Kardashian-Jenner clan will surely find themselves at the center of an archival-fashion controversy again soon enough.