Kim Kardashian West threw it back to the early ‘00s in her recent Instagram posts. Over the weekend, KKW posted a three-image slideshow that showed her posing in Givenchy for creative director Matthew Williams’ debut campaign for the French fashion house. (Kendall and Kylie Jenner, along with Bella Hadid and Kaia Gerber, were also models.) In it, Kardashian-West wears a long-sleeved, black dress with a back so low, her red, studded G-string is on full display. Long hair extensions, brown lipstick and eyeshadow, and an oversized bag round out the Y2K fashion aesthetic. To add to the nostalgic feel, Baby Phat founder and ‘00s icon Kimora Lee Simmons commented on the post, saying, “Your thong is showing ladyyyyyyy!!!”
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The thong-baring fashion trend, also known as a whale tail, got its start at Jean Paul Gaultier’s spring ‘97 runway show. It made its red carpet splash at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, when Halle Berry wore a pink, red, and white sequin-covered two-piece, her G-string out for all to see. (Britney Spears later let her thong show during a performance of “Oops I Did It… Again” at the award show.) Actress Gillian Anderson wore an almost identical look to Kardashian West’s at the 2001 Oscars after-party. (The look also resembles Hailey Bieber’s Met Gala Alexander Wang dress from 2019.) That same year, Paris Hilton, KKW’s former employer, was spotted with her thong out during a NYFW presentation. And like her then-assistant, Hilton hasn’t let go of the Y2K trends that made her the style icon she is today. In fact, on the same day that Kardashian-West posted her Givenchy campaign images, she also posted not one, not two, but three ‘00s-inspired Instagram posts featuring Hilton.
To introduce SKIMS Velour, a new line of tracksuits, Kardashian West posted a video on Saturday, which offered a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the campaign starring herself and Hilton. The duo, dressed in velour tracksuits — another '00s fashion staple! — can be seen posing next to a silver Range Rover, talking (probably to each other) on matching Motorola Razr flip phones. The second post included shots from the campaign, one of which shows KKW sprawled on the hood of her car. “Major 2000s vibes,” she captioned the photos. Alongside the last of the three posts, she wrote, “Besties for life!!!” followed by, “U guys have no idea how tracksuits were our uniform and so happy to make a skims version.” The accompanying photo is of the two carrying Louis Vuitton Alma tote bags — Hilton’s in silver and Kardashian West’s in gold — and wearing chunky dad sneakers and oversized sunglasses.
Tracksuits are hardly a rarity in 2020. In fact, they were one of the biggest trends from New York Fashion Week, not to mention one of the only sartorial items to thrive in the first few months of lockdown. As for G-string-baring dresses and jeans? We’ll leave those — along with corsets and leather chaps — for the stars of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.