At the 2022 Met Gala, Kim Kardashian made headlines when she revealed that she had gone on a crash diet in order to fit into the Marilyn Monroe “Happy Birthday Mr. President” outfit she was wearing and striking a pose on the museum stairs.

This year, though, she took part in a new form of body modification thanks to the intense corseting of the couture dress by Maison Margiela by John Galliano that she wore. The garment was so tightly fitted at the waist that it gave her the hourglass shape of the X Games. It was so tight that it was difficult to think how she would be able to breathe inside the museum, let alone eat.

Social media users took notice right away. One onlooker commented, “Kim Kardashian honestly looks so uncomfortable and like she can barely move or even breathe.” “It shouldn’t be how fashion is.”

“Everyone is grabbing their waist,” a commenter on X said. “From Bad Bunny to Kim Kardashian, they said that the only rule in the garden of time is to not breathe.”

Both men and women wore the corseting at Mr. Galliano’s much-heralded January Margiela couture show, which featured “making of” photos on mood boards that showed the bruises the lacing had left on the models’ bodies. (Ms. Kardashian had watched the show from the front row.)

This time around, Ms. Kardashian wore an updated version of the corset that was inspired by an ancient silver brocade. It was worn with a sheer silver metal skirt embellished with lace flowers, twigs, and mirror shards, in keeping with the evening’s “The Garden of Time” dress code. As it happens, the notion of suffering for fashion is ageless.