Kimberly, who runs a Twitter and Instagram account named @thekimbino, didn’t style Kim Kardashian in that vintage Alexander McQueen Oyster dress she wore to Sunday night's Vanity Fair Oscar party, but she might have had something to do with it.
In 2018, the 24-year-old teacher based in Australia who curates fashion editorials, celebrity outfits, and runway looks on her instagram account, @thekimbino, tweeted a Love magazine editorial shot by Steven Klein and styled by Katie Grand that featured Kim Kardashian wearing Prada. Kardashian retweeted the post, calling it her favorite shoot, and followed her account.
Shortly after that, Kimberly, an Alexander McQueen stan, jokingly DMd Kardashian requesting that she wear a dress from the Spring/Summer 2000 collection. Kardashian responded, asking who made the dress, and complimented her on her Instagram account. Since then the’ve gone back and forth over DMs about fashion and she finally met her in Los Angeles earlier this year.
“She knows I love McQueen, so when we met she told me about the Oyster dress Kanye bought her for Christmas, and how she planned on wearing it to the Oscars,” says Kimberly. “I was so excited because I love McQueen. And it’s not just Kim who I want to wear archival McQueen. If I had the opportunity I would tell other people to get try to get archival pieces as well.”
Kimberly was studying fasion business in 2015 when she started posting runway looks she styled via Polyvore to her Instagram account. She attracted a lot of followers, but decided to abandon those type of posts because it wasn’t fulfilling. She says it lost her thousands of followers, but it gained her attention. She recieved offers from models, Instagram influencers, etc., for her to move to Los Angeles and style them, but it was always difficult for her to obtain a work visa because she doesn’t have a degree in fashion. In 2018 she stopped posting and dedicated her time to going back to school to teach primary school, which she does now.
“I was content with just doing what I was doing and doing this fashion on the side. I was enjoying myself, learning more about fashion, but I wiped my hands clean of trying to work in the industry.”
Her page is a collection of stuff she likes with some context, whether that’s an archival Christian Larcroix corset Beyonce wore or the John Galiano for Dior newspaper print Pretty Little Thing copied. But, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, and McQueen are constants on the page. How does she feel about Sarah Burton, the current designer of McQueen? She says Burton’s clothes are beautiful but she isn't as theatrical as Alexander McQueen. And how does she feel about the evolution of Kim’s style? She’s into it.
“I appreciate that she does the leg work to learn about it. It’s not just like, ‘Oh buy this for me, buy that for me' to a stylist,” she says. “And a lot of people wonder why she doesn’t credit this person or credit that person. It’s because Kanye is behind most of these things. He's very hands on with it. That’s why she’s so fashion forward now.”
