Kim Kardashian borrowed Marilyn Monroe’s iconic dress for the Met Gala earlier this year and as it turns out, she may have caused some damage.
At the 2022 Met Gala, Kim Kardashian pissed off many fashion and history buffs when she hit the red carpet in the iconic dress Marilyn Monroe wore while singing Happy Birthday, Mr. President in 1962.
Although Kim apparently took the utmost care with the dress and even changed into a replica after the red carpet viewing, it seems she may have still damaged the world’s most expensive dress.
View this post on Instagram
In 2016, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum bought the dress for $4.8 million although the gown is now valued at over $10 million.
Ripley’s announced in a press release that “Great care was taken to preserve this piece of pop culture history. With input from garment conservationists, appraisers, and archivists, the garment’s condition was top priority. Believe It or Not! no alterations were to be made to the dress and Kim even changed into a replica after the red carpet!”
“We basically had many conversations with Kim and her team and put a lot of requirements in place with security and with the handling of the dress,” Amanda Joiner, a vice president of licensing and publishing at Ripley’s, said to the Daily Beast.
“The dress was never with Kim alone. It was always with a Ripley’s representative. We always ensured that at any time we felt that the dress was in danger of ripping or we felt uncomfortable about anything, we always had the ability to be able to say we not were going to continue with this.”
“We had to make some decisions as far as whether or not we were willing to let Kim borrow the dress,” Joiner said.
“We did two different fittings with her. The first one was in L.A. in April and then the second one later in April to see whether or not the dress would fit. The biggest challenge that we had is that we really wanted to make sure that we kept the integrity of the dress and the preservation, because it’s 60 years old, and we feel that it’s such an iconic piece of fashion, both from a historical perspective, but also from a pop culture perspective.”
The Kardashians star reportedly dropped 16 pounds to get into the gown and she told Vogue: “I’m extremely respectful to the dress and what it means to American history,”
“I would never want to sit in it or eat in it or have any risk of any damage to it and I won’t be wearing the kind of body makeup I usually do.”
While Ripley’s noted that no damage had been done to the garment after getting it back from Kim, yesterday Pop Culture posted a before and after image that shows the alleged damage Kim caused on the back of the dress.
The museum has not yet commented on the new images.
