In Defence Of Kendall's Met Gala Dress & Those Claims That It Was "Stolen"

In a bit of Met Gala news that we (maybe) saw coming, Kendall Jenner is being accused of taking her love for '90s nostalgia a little too far. The model is being shamed for ripping off Rose McGowan's iconic chainlink dress from the MTV Video Music Awards in 1998. That's right — the Internet doesn't forget, especially when a Kardashian-Jenner is involved. Jenner rocked a La Perla haute couture number at last night's Met Gala that was visibly similar, and Twitter just can't seem to let it go.

For starters, we're going to go ahead and say that slut shaming is officially out. And, by "out," we mean out of style, not cool, a thing of the past, etc. — you get it. Jenner was pelted with insults via Twitter for baring her backside in the daring number, which, if we're going to give the Internet credit for remembering things, has actually been done before. See: Miley Cyrus, Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna (yes, Rihanna), and Amber Rose, who previously paid homage to McGowan's iconic red carpet look from the aughts. If anyone — of any size — wants to show off any assets they're proud of, so be it.

Secondly, it's helpful to keep in mind that Jenner didn't design this dress. It was whipped up by Simon Durand, a designer for La Perla's ready-to-wear and haute couture collections. The designer posted the snapshots to his Instagram following Jenner's turn on the red carpet, and shared how proud he was of the moment. Let's not forget that many of last night's looks didn't really reference the gala's Comme des Garçons theme. (And, yes, we were really into many of this year's red carpet numbers, but we wished more designers would have gone a little further, whether on theme or not). Durand doesn't deserve flack for the bold getup, but nor does Jenner, either.

And thirdly, though she's yet to post any reactions to the hooplah, we're sure McGowan is probably unfazed by all the tomfoolery on Twitter. When Amber Rose bared it all in a similar look at the MTV VMA's in 2014, McGowan "happily passed the torch" to Rose, and told her to "ignore the hand wringers". See? That's how it's done. So what if someone wore something that looked like someone else's outfit 19 years before? If the fashion police of Twitter really operated by that logic, then they'd need a whole unit to be on 24-hour watch of celebrities and their daily outfits, because, the reality is: There's just not enough clothes to go around. And sometimes, yeah, celebrities and their stylists are going to pull from the same showroom. It is what it is.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, can we give Kendall Jenner a break? Let's put Pepsi, the Fyre Festival, and this baseless claim behind us. While we can admit that the looks are clearly similar, no one "owns" the naked dress. And, after all, one of the best things about fashion is that it just really isn't that serious.