At the Met Gala last week, few looks were as hotly anticipated as Kim Kardashian’s – especially following the jaw-dropping black Balenciaga bodysuit that covered her from head to toe last September. Thankfully, she had a similarly unexpected trick up her sleeve for the second half of the museum’s In America exhibition, this time in the form of a gown worn by Marilyn Monroe. It wasn’t just any one of Monroe’s dresses, though: the shimmering, crystal-studded flesh tone gown was worn by Monroe for her infamous performance of “Happy Birthday, Mr President” at John F Kennedy’s birthday in 1962. (Of course, the look being a museum-level piece of fashion history, she wore it only for photos on the red carpet before quickly switching into a replica.)
In an interview with Vogue ahead of this week’s event, Kardashian noted that she also had a replica of another of Monroe’s gowns to hand – although, as she put it, she was only planning to wear that one to “eat pizza in my hotel room”. It turns out that Kardashian also had the real thing, too: a green sequin dress that was in the hands of Heritage Auctions, and which Kardashian also slipped into for a quick photoshoot in her room. The dress is another of Monroe’s most memorable looks, this time a Norman Norell design that she wore to the 1962 Golden Globes, where she picked up the Henrietta Award for being a “world film favourite”.
“In my quest to find the Jean Louis hand-beaded dress that I wore to the gala, I discovered Heritage Auctions owned Marilyn’s iconic green sequined gown,” Kardashian wrote on Instagram. In the process of her research, she also stumbled upon the fact that the award Monroe won that year was owned by a friend of hers, the floral designer Jeff Leatham, who purchased it at auction in 2018. “I saw this all as a sign, the way that all of the stars aligned,” Kardashian added. “It will forever be one of the greatest privileges of my life to be able to channel my inner Marilyn in this way, on such a special night.” We won’t be forgetting her show-stopping looks any time soon, either.
