A Marilyn Monroe that incredible dress cost six thousand dollars and for the sake of adherence she was forced to have it sewn on. Kim Kardashianwho had it on loan and is forced to return it, to wear it on the red carpet of the with Gala in New York and make those present take a shot he had to lose 7 pounds in 3 weeks. When it is said to immerse oneself in the shoes of the myth. And dare to go all out (the competition in this case is tough) with a dress that has written a page in US history.
Monroe wore it on May 19, 1962, the night she sang Happy Birthday to the president who was turning 45 with a voice of cream and honey. No one could have imagined that a few months later, on August 4, she would die – 36 years old – and her birthday boy would not be long in reaching her. Evidently the stars of our time are not superstitious. Flesh-colored silk organza, as if flesh on display wasn’t enough back then. Studded with hand-sewn rock crystals to reflect the lights. And accompanied by a white fur stole, which Monroe retrieved in the dressing room before disappearing with John Kennedy into the basement of Madison Square Garden as the whole nation murmured.
Fancy dress for the time, heart attack anyway and always. Only the entrepreneur and uber influencer who became famous for her B-side could dare so much, and never mind if it was her B-side that gave some problems. Dazzling and fair to the arm of the toyboy Pete Davidson, even if exhausted from a hardcore session at the hairdresser. To push the emulation over the hair, she went from brown to brown in a few hours platinum blonde. Wig? No, courage. A grueling process of discoloration lasted 14 hours, but you know after what satisfaction. Monroe did too. Don’t put that dress there if you don’t have a head. And what was in the head of Norma Jean in the night that would forever consign her to legend? Confusion, a thread of panic. 15,000 Democratic voters were present, not all in good spirits. The Kennedy’s brother-in-law, the actor Peter Lawford, had organized the gala convinced that only she could be up to it but at the top of the party there was discontent: a girl from the street, one who does not oppose a refusal if someone has just sympathetic, someone like this who sings for the most authoritative man on earth, the president of the new frontier, of civil rights, of the new relations between the great powers?
They say they have known each other for a few years. There are those who swear to have seen them several times on the beach of Malibu, he is still a young senator and she is an actress on the rise. Frequent and not very innocent encounters. With John, but also with his brother Robert. The Madison Square show would have been the height of a dream, an invitation impossible to refuse. As she styled her hair she was very nervous. Bobby Kennedy walked into the dressing room and they heard them arguing. “I think she’s a fucking bitch,” he hissed at the exit as reported by the most treacherous of biographers, who does not fail to add how disheveled the diva was and how much good a glass of champagne can do to your nerves. She made the audience wait. But when she walked into the room in that crazy dress and started blowing into the microphone in a flash of crystals, she was immediately forgiven.
At dawn she was seen leaving the building with the president and climbing into the Kennedy penthouse overlooking Manhattan. It was the epilogue of a special day, the beginning of the end for both of us. They have never met since. And so yes, it takes courage to wear that dress.