The lion, the Kardashian and the wardrobe

The Kardashian family is fond of borrowing dresses that create controversy. Kim Kardashian caused a stir with Marilyn Monroe’s hand-me-downs at the Met Gala and now little sister Kylie Jenner has launched Gown-gate 2, in a dress from Schiaparelli designer Daniel Roseberry at the haute couture shows in Paris.

In the front row, beside founder Elsa Schiaparelli’s granddaughter, Cabaret actor Marisa Berenson, the beauty entrepreneur and Kardashians star wore a fitted, strapless black velvet dress with a faux-taxidermy lion head silently staring from the right shoulder.

Roseberry was inspired by Dante’s Inferno for the dress, which in a break from fashion protocol also appeared on the runway, worn by Irina Shayk, along with a black wolf coat on Naomi Campbell and Shalom Harlow in a strapless black and white leopard dress.

“This collection is my homage to doubt,” Roseberry wrote in the program. “I wanted to step away from techniques I was comfortable with and understood, to choose instead that dark wood where everything is scary but new.”

It’s also an evolution from Elsa’s deliberately shocking collections, having created a dress featuring a lobster painted by Salvador Dalí on the skirt in 1937 and a sweater adorned with a giant fly in 1952.

The PETA-approved lion dress drew criticism from online animal activists, saying that the lifelike heads glorified trophy hunting, while defenders of high-priced haute couture say it celebrates the beauty of sharp-toothed nature.

Either way it’s a trend that’s about to happen, like the Kardashian’s nude dresses, nude support garments or nude buttocks, so here’s where to wear it.

Upcoming Donald Trump appearance in South Carolina, January 28
Former US First Lady Melania Trump mastered mixed messages with her wardrobe during her husband Donald’s time in office. There was the Zara jacket with the slogan “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” worn to a Texan children’s shelter in 2018 and the $US51,000 coat from controversial label Dolce & Gabbana taken to Sicily in 2017.