Kim Kardashian’s choice to wear the dress with which Marilyn Monroe sang to her at the gala of the Metropolitan Museum of New York (Met) Happy Birthday in Madison Square Garden to the then President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, sparked controversy. On the one hand, it was a garment that the actress wore in July 1962, weeks before she was found dead in her home, at a time when she was already a woman devastated by pills and her career was on the brink of the abyss. . On the other hand, Kardashian acknowledged that she had to lose seven kilos in three weeks to be able to put on her suit for just a few minutes, the time it took her to walk down the red carpet. Later, the businesswoman changed the original model for an exact replica, since, as she herself acknowledged in an interview for Magazine fashionhe would not dare to “sit with it, eat with it or risk harming it”.
However, it seems that this short period of time was enough to spoil the historical dress. This is evidenced by the images shared by collector Scott Fortner, which show how the fabric has been stretched excessively until it breaks in the area of the rear closure. In the photographs it can also be seen that some of the crystals that adorn the design are missing.
Fortner owns a generous collection of objects that belonged to Marilyn Monroe and is in charge of the Instagram account @marilynmonroecollection, where he has published the images that reveal the damage that Kim Kardashian caused to the dress. In them she cites Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, the museum that acquired it in 2016 and has been in custody since then, and that therefore managed the permission for the millionaire influencer I could take it.
According to the vice president of the gallery, Amanda Joiner, in the American media DailyBeast in early May, they had “many discussions with Kim and her team” and established “many requirements around the safety and handling of the dress.” In fact, she says that a representative of the museum was always present in case they decided to back down if at any time they felt that the dress could be at risk of being damaged. “We did two different tests with her. The first was in Los Angeles, in April, and then the second a little later to see if it fit or not. The biggest challenge that we had is that we really wanted to make sure that we maintain the integrity of the dress and preservation, because it’s 60 years old and we feel like it’s an iconic fashion piece, both from a historical perspective and from a pop culture perspective.” After the images of the damage came to light, they have not made any statements about it.
“Was it worth it?” collector Scott Fortner now wonders. Monroe paid $1,440 — about 1,380 euros today — to designer Jean-Louis in 1962 to custom-make the dress, which was designed by Bob Mackie. In 1999, it sold for more than a million dollars at Christie’s auction house, as part of an auction for various personal belongings of the actress. Later, in 2016, it was auctioned again for 4.8 million dollars at Julien’s Auctions, at which time it was acquired by the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum, which would be allegedly responsible for the damage suffered by the historic piece. by giving it to Kim Kardashian so she could wear it for a few minutes.
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