Kendall Jenner has earned her wings at the 2026 Met Gala, “Costume Art.”
On the occasion of her 12th Met Gala, the model turned to Zac Posen, the creative director of Gap Inc., to fashion her a GapStudio look inspired by Winged Victory of Samothrace, the second-century Greek statue of the goddess of victory that welcomes visitors to the Louvre.
Though they’d never worked together, Jenner and Posen held each other in high regard. She cites Christina Ricci’s 2011 Met Gala dress—which Jenner calls the “spider dress”—as the Posen look that lives rent-free in her mind. “I’ve had this dress on my mood board for so fucking long!” she says. “It’s so perfect, and she looks so gorgeous and hot.”
Posen, who has a long-standing relationship with Jenner’s sister Kim Kardashian, always longed to collaborate with the model. So when it came time for the 2026 Met Gala, Posen wrote Jenner a letter. “I said that it would be a dream to collaborate with her for this theme,” he says. “I thought she was the perfect person.”
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“I’ve always really admired Zac from afar,” Jenner says. But recently, she adds, “I just kept thinking about him.” When it came time for the Met, Posen crossed her mind, “but I didn’t put any action into it at the time,” she says. “And very cosmically, I got an email from him.” Jenner views the entire endeavor as fated. “I believe in the universe guiding you in a certain direction. It came together so perfectly.”
Posen brought a modern sensibility to the ancient statue, using the classic white T-shirt—a Gap staple—as a jumping-off point. “I took a white Gap T-shirt off of my back in my studio and started pulling it and tweaking it and figuring out how—in a contemporary way, in a glamorous way—to interpret the sculpture that influenced humanity and our modern culture,” he says. (Also on the mood board were masters of jersey and drapery: Madame Grès, Azzedine Alaïa, Roy Halston Frowick, Madeleine Vionnet, Geoffrey Beene, and Claire McCardell.)
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Jenner, who was “super, super, super involved” in the process, was keen to capture the rippling, windswept tunic with an ultrathin fabric, which led Posen to a lightweight cotton-viscose blend that created a wet drapery look. “It’s been really cool to see him work. I can see his wheels turning, which is such a treat for me,” Jenner says. “I love being a part of every step of the process.” The designer added some dimension by layering the tea-dyed liquid jersey with satin-face chiffon and organza to mimic the statue’s fluid drapery.
Posen also commissioned Abel Cepeda Ljoka and Will Kowall of the New York brand Seks to create the base of the dress, a leather corset to be worn underneath. “We 3D-printed her body and made a mannequin and a bust of it that is the corset underneath this,” he explains. Posen draped the fabric to show off the corset like an exposed breast.
Of course, no homage to Nike is complete without her wings. “[Kendall] said that she wanted it effortless and light,” Posen explains. The pair landed on fashioning the wings in an airy, satin-faced chiffon. “After this draping, we started looking at photographic imagery of the actual wings from the Victory of Samothrace, and we created these photographic large-scale 3D prints on fabric,” Posen explains. When Jenner lifts her arms on the carpet, Nike’s wings will fan out as she moves.
A longtime Met Gala attendee, Jenner has her routine down to a science. “I sit there in glam before I get there and I watch that red carpet on the livestream,” she says. “And then to be able to get inside and run into people; I feel every year it’s like my yearly high school reunion.” Still, even on her 12th turn, Jenner admits that she gets some pre-Met jitters: “I’ll probably need a shot before the carpet.”
Here, Kendall Jenner takes Vogue along as she gets ready for the 2026 Met Gala—and the after-party.
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