(Left to right) Winged Victory of Samothrace, circa 190 B.C. Image credit: Heritage Images/Getty Images & Zac Posen’s sketch for Kendall Jenner. Image credit: courtesy of GapStudio
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.