Kim Kardashian is no stranger to a fleeting moment becoming a viral news story. But her recent appearance at the Met Gala, wearing the dress that Marilyn Monroe wore to sing Happy Birthday to President John Kennedy in 1962, proved particularly divisive, with the 41-year-old outraging costume buffs for sporting what is considered by many to be a museum exhibit rather than a dress.
Designed by Jean Louis, based on a sketch by a young Bob Mackie, the dress has more than 2,000 crystals hand-stitched into souffle silk, a fabric that has since been outlawed due to its flammability. Monroe was reportedly sewn into it and wore it only for the time she was on stage. Kardashian borrowed it from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!, which bought the garment for $4.8m for the garment in 2016 – making it, as its website crows, “the world’s most expensive dress”.
