How garage helped Kim Kardashian dazzle at Met Gala

The 2026 Met Gala saw the debut of an unusual new fashion house - an auto repair garage in Kent.

MPS Body & Paint painted an orange fibreglass breastplate that Kim Kardashian wore to the New York event, considered the biggest night in fashion.

The bodyshop, in Lydd, was called on after its previous work on a car for Keir Malem and Patrick Whitaker, who created the outfit with pop artist Allen Jones.

"I'd repaired and painted their car for them," said MPS owner Martyn Smith. "They turned up here one day, asked me if I would basically paint this."

He told the BBC he was "guessing" who it was for, but was only told when the designers came to collect it and then "sworn to secrecy".

Smith said: "I had 24 hours to do it in and it meant I had to drop some work to do it, but I thought what an honour and a pleasure, as well as a job, to do it."

According to the artists, known together as Whitaker Malem, the breastplate was moulded from Jones's 1969 sculpture Hatstand, with the 88-year-old artist painting the attached leather skirt.

They said Kardashian travelled to England twice to develop the item and have it fitted, with it taking three weeks to complete.

Malem, himself originally from Lydd, said the celebrity had been "cock-a-hoop" with the outcome.

"She phoned us herself, we've only ever dealt with her and she's very, very amenable," he said.

His partner Whitaker said the paint, picked at a shop in Ashford, was "just so important" to the outfit, which responded to the event's theme of Fashion is Art.

"I think Kim is one of the very few people that actually turned up in something that was in fact by a known artist, obviously in collaboration with ourselves," Whitaker said.

"The other reason it's attention-getting was the colour, because I don't think there was a lot of colour really last night."

Smith said social media had "gone bonkers" after his post about the breastplate and he was "held up quite a bit" on Tuesday answering messages.

The bodyshop owner admitted he did not stay up late to watch the Met Gala red carpet coverage, but saw "pictures popping up everywhere" in the morning.

"She wore it fantastically well," he said. "I thought it looked just as good on her as it did the day I finished it, if not better."

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