{"id":657845,"date":"2026-05-08T14:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/657845\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T14:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:00:09","slug":"soft-armour-pert-nipples-how-london-design-team-made-kim-kardashians-met-gala-breastplate-met-gala-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/657845\/","title":{"rendered":"Soft armour, pert nipples: how London design team made Kim Kardashian\u2019s Met Gala breastplate | Met Gala 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Monday\u2019s Met Gala, it inevitably fell to Kim Kardashian to deliver the evening\u2019s biggest jolt. One of the few celebrities to straightforwardly interpret the \u201cfashion is art\u201d dress code<\/a> \u2013 which focused on how the dressed and undressed human body is the through-line in most works of art \u2013 she decided to forgo her usual role as a walking billboard for a major fashion house and instead arrived in an orange fibreglass breastplate created by a small east London art duo and a car bodyshop in Kent.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood art should start conversation, and Kim did exactly that,\u201d says 61-year-old Patrick Whitaker, half of the design practice Whitaker Malem, who made the breastplate just weeks before the gala. \u201cShe was very clear on wanting a breastplate, very clear on the car body finish. And I think she was nervous really. She understands the competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also found out from Anna Wintour that five other people were wearing breastplates, including her half-sisters, Kylie and Kendall Jenner. Soft armour and pert nipples might have been the themes of the night, but for someone that famous, says Whitaker, it\u2019s still a risky proposition to wear it.<\/p>\n

Patrick Whitaker, left, and Keir Malem, aka Whitaker Malem, the team that created Kim Kardashian\u2019s body armour for the Met Gala. Photograph: Linda Nylind\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Speaking at the home he shares with his partner, Keir Malem, 60, the duo are still recovering from watching the gala live. \u201cWe went to bed at 5am. It\u2019s surprisingly tedious, isn\u2019t it? A bit Hunger Games,\u201d says Whitaker.<\/p>\n

The breastplate was a three-way collaboration between the pair, the British pop artist Allen Jones and the visual artist Nadia Lee Cohen (a frequent collaborator of Kardashian). On the night, Kardashian attended the gala with Jones.<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019s fetishistic furniture made from topless women \u2013 made as a continuing series between the early 80s and 2015 \u2013 ignited second-wave feminist outrage<\/a>. Yet it continues to permeate and often influence the fashion industry, from the armoured silhouettes of Thierry Mugler to the Pirelli calendar, and now the steps of the Met Gala.<\/p>\n

Kim Kardashian attends the Met Gala. A hand-painted leather skirt was added to the breastplate. Photograph: Matt Crossick\/PA<\/p>\n

The collaboration began in early April after Whitaker and Malem received a call from Kardashian directly asking if they would build her something for the gala. During one video call at their seaside home in Kent<\/a>, he says: \u201cWe were just talking about how firm her body was, and she was just showing me her breasts on a video call whilst Keir and his dad were eating their dinner in the background.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following week, Kardashian flew to the UK and drove to Allen\u2019s Oxfordshire home \u201cwith one of her body dummies chucked in the hold like it was a Volvo\u201d, says Whitaker. The breastplate was cast by Whitaker Malem from an original mould derived from Jones\u2019s 1969 Hatstand sculpture, to which they added a hand-painted leather skirt. She had tried on various fibreglass moulds, and remarkably, her waist and top half fit. \u201cWe\u2019d never seen an Allen Jones breastplate fit anyone so well,\u201d says Whitaker. \u201cThey aren\u2019t really designed to be worn.\u201d Kardashian made several trips to east London<\/a> to try on the breastplate.<\/p>\n

Allen Jones in his studio in Oxfordshire. His fetishistic furniture made from topless women continues to permeate the fashion industry. Photograph: Sam Frost\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

It was finally sprayed orange by Martyn Smith, who runs a body workshop, MPS Body and Paint, in Lydd, Kent. \u201cIt was several layers, so primers and stoppers and the final paint was solvent base, and finished with a gloss lacquer,\u201d he said. \u201cIt took all day, but it came out so well. I was worried, though. I\u2019m not a follower of Kim Kardashian<\/a> or fashion, but I knew it was going to appear at a big event,\u201d he says. \u201cMartyn does our Jag, so we know he\u2019s reliable,\u201d says Whitaker.<\/p>\n

Whitaker and Malem founded their design practice Whitaker Malem<\/a> in 1988. Neither artists nor designers, they prefer the term \u201cpop artisans\u201d and make about 12 garments a year, starting at a few thousand a piece. They primarily work with leather, and have perfected a form of wet-moulding and sculpting it for clothes. Working using block moulds, it is a process highly analogous with footwear and millinery.<\/p>\n

The breastplate was actually made from a type of fibreglass called glass-reinforced plastic. The breastplate weighed the same as a bag of flour and Kardashian was naked underneath.<\/p>\n

The finished piece was collected a few days before the gala by \u201csome poor flustered man who\u2019d flown first class from Los Angeles to pick the piece up, and then was turning tail, going back to Heathrow, and had a seven o\u2019clock flight to New York\u201d. Unable to book a seat for the outfit itself because \u201cit didn\u2019t have a name\u201d, the breastplate was placed in the overhead locker.<\/p>\n

Whitaker was a student at St Martin\u2019s when he met Malem, who was working in theatre at the time. They occasionally showed at fashion week, though it wasn\u2019t until the late 1980s when Bros<\/a> bought one of their jackets that they were able to focus on their leather work. They have dressed everyone from Cher to Bella Hadid and worked with numerous designers, including Tommy Hilfiger and Burberry.<\/p>\n

Allen Jones paints the leather skirt attached to the breastplate. Photograph: Whitaker Malem<\/p>\n

The designers\u2019 biggest work has been in the film industry. A gilded breastplate and wing bustier created for Lee McQueen at Givenchy led to them making Brad Pitt\u2019s skirt in Troy and Wonder Woman\u2019s suit from the 2009 film, along with several Bond girl costumes, including Halle Berry\u2019s white belt worn in Die Another Day, which now hangs on a wall in their home. Angelina Jolie\u2019s Lara Croft suit was made using materials from nearby Ridley Road in Dalston. The Hollywood segue was lucrative but they rarely got credit. \u201cSome of the costume designers bought these pieces off the rack and were pretending they designed them.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was after the complicated task of creating Christian Bale\u2019s batsuit, made from moulded urethane, carbon fibre and mesh, that they discovered \u201cthe glorious body scanning game\u201d. To make the form, it is produced by a 3D printer then refined by hand using a sharp knife, before the leather is draped over it using their wet mould process.<\/p>\n

Jones received a lot of criticism for his work, says Malem, but with Kardashian he\u2019s cleverly flipped this on its head. \u201cInstead of the usual girl draped across the car, he wanted to put the car on the girl.\u201d<\/p>\n