Reality TV star Kim Kardashian stoked controversy when she wore Marilyn’s ‘Happy Birthday Mr. President‘ dress last year. Now, Kim has launched a replica gown for her Skims fashion line, as Daniel Rodgers reports for Vogue (although some might say it’s not her look to sell …)
“In 2022, Kim Kardashian inspired the International Council of Museums to launch a clothing preservation committee. That is because she wore a fragile, 60-year-old dress (that few people had given much thought to before) to the Met Gala. On loan from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, the flesh-toned, diamanté gown was famed not only for its construction, but also the architecture of the woman who once stood inside it: Marilyn Monroe … Though Kim (a thoroughbred socialite born in the lap of luxury in Calabasas) could not inhabit the tragic glamour of Monroe’s life, the parallels between these two icons were clear.
The triangulation of controversy and applause is, of course, familiar ground for Kim. This is a woman whose profile feeds on the convergent forces of scepticism and praise, whose undeniable talent for wedding herself to the zeitgeist is so often brought into public debate. That Kim should choose to insert herself into a particularly controversial chapter of Monroe’s tale – dressing in the exact item the actor wore to serenade President John F Kennedy (her rumoured lover) at Madison Square Garden in 1962 – begins to make all the more sense. Because to capitalise on outrage is consistent with the Kardashian agenda, where there’s real intention for there to be a light scandal. It means the dress has been at the forefront of the American psyche on two occasions, both times serving as a Faustian symbol of fame.
At $4.8 million, The Dress also remains the most expensive to have ever been sold at auction, a price that reflects the image (and, yes, scandal) of Monroe presenting herself as a twinkling siren for the Washington elite … Kim later sold avatars of the dress within her video game (which, yes, is still going), and she just today launched a physical recreation as part of the Skims and Swarovski collaboration. It hasn’t been marketed as an imitation of the Monroe dress (and there is no reference to the piece in any of the surrounding press) but it’s there nonetheless: a nude-illusion, floor-length gown scattered with delicate rhinestones.
Some 17 months on, the 2022 Met Gala might also be read through another lens: as the ultimate advertisement for Skims itself. Not just because Kim wore her own shapewear beneath the garment, but because she lost (a well-documented and dissected) 16lbs to fit into it. If the goal of Skims is to sculpt people’s bodies, then Kim became her brand’s best living advertisement on that same evening. And the fact that she felt comfortable using Monroe as a vessel for this project was always going to invite conversation. It seems obvious that there was always going to be a Skims facsimile of Monroe’s original dress in the works, it’s just surprising that it’s taken this long to come to fruition – now you too can own the ‘most expensive dress in the world’, for just £196.”
But the Monroe ‘homage’ doesn’t end there. Last weekend, Kim – whose favourite movie is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – wore a pink Balenciaga gown inspired by Marilyn’s costume for the ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ number, designed by Travilla.
Kim’s sister, Kylie Jenner – who wore her own version of the ‘Diamond Dress’ for a V magazine shoot back in 2018 – joined the copycat act at Paris Fashion Week in September, sporting a Schiaperelli gown widely compared to Marilyn’s ‘birthday dress’ (originally created by Jean Louis.)
And finally, the tradition of Kardashian family branding continued as Kendall Jenner adopted a more relaxed look from Marilyn’s 1953 photo shoot with Alfred Eisenstaedt for a Halloween party in October (though she may also have been inspired by Lana Del Rey’s ‘Candy Necklace‘ video.)
UPDATE: The Skims recreation of Marilyn’s ‘birthday dress’ has sold out within a day of its launch, as People reports.
The Marilyn Report 
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