An expert familiar with the outfit tells USA TODAY that Kim Kardashian appears to have irreversibly destroyed a famous Marilyn Monroe dress after wearing it to the 2022 Met Gala.
When curator Chad Michael Morrissette saw the outfit on display at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles on Sunday, he said he detected irreparable damage to it. Previously, Morrissette adds, he handled the gown for Julien’s Auctions in 2016, when Ripley’s bought it for $4.8 million.
In the wake of Kim Kardashian wearing the dress up the Met Gala’s spiral staircase, Morrisette claims that the zipper has been ripped apart; the fabric has been shredded by its hooks, and the shoulders have been put under a great deal of stress.
Scott Fortner, a Monroe memorabilia collector, published Morrissette’s images of the dress on Instagram to show how it appeared before Kim Kardashian wore it.
To inquire about Kardashian and Ripley’s response, USA TODAY has contacted both reps.
After Monroe donned the skin-tight, shimmering nude dress while singing “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy in 1962, it became part of American history.
“One night, Marilyn donned the dress and it fit her perfectly. It was as though she had a second skin “Morrissette states this.
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Ripley collaborated with Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala six decades later. Rather than risk damaging the original, she only wore it briefly, according to Vogue’s account.
“The outfit and its significance to American history mean a great deal to me. As far as I’m concerned, I wouldn’t want to sit in it, dine in it, or put any type of risk on my skin, and I wouldn’t apply the kind of body cosmetics I typically do.” Kardashian said in an interview with Vogue in 2013. To get the timing just right, “everything has to be timed exactly,” says the student.
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This item of pop culture history has been preserved with great care, according to a post on Instagram by Ripley’s in May. The “garment’s quality was a top priority,” the post added.
Morrissette, on the other hand, insists that the outfit should never have been worn in the first place.
“In the case of fabric, thread, and sequins that are 60 years old, everything you do ruins them. When you put it out in the open, it gets harmed “he responds. In my opinion, it’s reprehensible when people wear something like this and walk up a flight of stairs without knowing anything about the fabric’s past.
Morrissette, a longtime Monroe admirer who has displayed numerous of the actress’s classic gowns, was moved to tears when he saw the “Happy Birthday” gown in its current state.
“My spirit has been crushed. I walked out of Ripley’s attempting to hold back my tears after seeing what I saw “as he puts it. As far as I’m concerned, “Marilyn’s dress is gone.”
As he continues, “This is the dress we’ll be looking at for the rest of our lives.” “You wrecked the most expensive dress in the world, Kim,” said the stylist.
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