Kim Kardashian Wears Iconic Marilyn Monroe ‘Happy Birthday’ Dress to Met Gala

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, and Kim Kardashian is no exception. She further proved her devotion to luxury on Monday by arriving to the Met Gala in Marilyn Monroe’s dress from her iconic 1962 performance of “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.”

The sparkly sheer dress has been on display at Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum in Orlando, Fla. since its purchase in 2016 for a whopping $4.81 million, a price that makes it one of the most expensive dresses in the world. Kim’s visit to the museum April 23 with boyfriend Pete Davidson led fans to speculate that she may be wearing the dress on Monday. Coupled with Kim’s previous comments about what she’ll wear to this year’s event, at which she has become a mainstay, the dress became a leading theory for what the reality star could choose to arrive in.

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“It really depends if I fit into my dress, so I hope I’m going,” Kim told Access Hollywood in April, when asked about her plans for the Met Gala. “I think it will be up to the last minute because it can’t be tailored, so I have to fit into it like exactly.”

AP

Kim has consistently made headlines with her outfits at the Vogue-hosted event, which draws eyes to the biggest stars in the world as they dress in-theme at the behest of Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. In 2019, for the gala’s “Camp: Notes on Fashion” theme, Kim wore a crystallized Mugler dress so tight she said she was given “corset breathing lessons.” Last year, for the gala’s American fashion theme, Kim arrived in a head-to-toe black Balenciaga bodysuit that obscured her identity to the point of conspiracy, with onlookers claiming she had sent a stand-in to attend in her place.

As a follow-up to last year’s American fashion theme, this year’s dress code is “Gilded Glamour.” Monroe’s Jean Louis dress certainly fits the bill, as it represents the historic actress and singer at her most spectacular.

Notably, the dress was so tight on Monroe that she had to be sewn into it before her performance at President John F. Kennedy’s 45th birthday event at Madison Square Garden, which may be the most iconic rendition of “Happy Birthday” to ever be sung. The dress originally cost $12,000. The chiffon fabric was made to perfectly match the singer’s skin tone, earning it the distinction of being a dress “that only Marilyn Monroe could wear.” With Kim’s decision to don it for the Met Gala, however, that no longer seems to be the case.

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