Kim Kardashian wore 'The Most Expensive Dress in the World' to the Met Gala

The Met Gala kicked off in New York on Monday night and boy oh boy, the red carpet was FIRE. Each year, the event plays host to some truly chaotic and glorious fashion looks. And one of the most hotly-anticipated attendees of the night is Kim Kardashian.

Without fail, Kim always arrives on the steps of the Met sporting a headline-making number. Last year was the divisive Dementor-esque Balenciaga outfit that spawned a thousand memes. Before that? Her wild 'wet look' Mugler corset dress. Naturally, in the run up to the big day, speculation started building around what Kim would wear and, well, some keen fans actually sussed it. Yep, some clever internet sleuths got it right, predicting that Kim Kardashian would sport an iconic Marilyn Monroe dress for the 2022 Met Gala.

More specifically, Kim wore the exact same dress that Marilyn wore to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to John F. Kennedy for his 45th birthday at Madison Square Garden in 1962. Here's the look in question, with Kim walking the red carpet alongside Pete Davidson.

The Kardashian styled the look with a furry white jacket draped around her arms, along with mega-high platform heels and diamond drop earrings:

As for beauty details, Kim went for platinum blonde hair slicked back into a bun, teamed with a soft smoky eye and nude lip:

So let's look at how fans knew the look was going to happen before Kim even arrived at the Met, shall we?

The vintage Bob Mackie dress, covered in crystals and reportedly valued at around USD $5 million, is currently on display at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum in Orlando, Florida. According to the museum, it's the 'Most Expensive Dress In the World'! Now, here's where it gets interesting: Kim was photographed visiting the exact same museum with Pete Davidson last week. Coincidence? Perhaps.

But there's more.

Kim has also revealed that she couldn't alter her 2022 Met Gala look. In an interview with Access Hollywood earlier this month, Kim said that her attendance at this year's gala hinges on whether she can actually get into her look. “It really depends if I fit into my dress, so I hope I'm going," she said. "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,” she added.

This prompted a Reddit user to put together the pieces and form a theory, writing: “I feel she is going to be wearing a high profile celebrity dress (E.g Marilyn Monroe's) which is in a museum she visited yesterday with Pete and as she spoke about how the dress 'cannot be tailored.'"

If you've watched Kim Kardashian's Instagram Stories of late, you also notice she's been hitting the gym pretty hard, with some early morning workouts (5:30m!) while wearing a hectic-sounding sauna suit:

Over on Twitter, the theory continued to grow, with another user writing, "an inside source told me that Kim K is trying to borrow Marilyn Monroe’s dress that she sang happy bday to president Kennedy in for the upcoming Met gala….but it doesn’t fit her so she’s trying super hard to get into shape until then"

For context, this year's Met Gala theme is 'In America: An Anthology of Fashion' - which is basically a celebration of America's fashion history. According to Vogue, the dress code for the gala is "gilded glamour, white tie." So a famous Marilyn look would kinda make sense, right?

TLDR; Kardashian fan @GayManWithASprayTan has summed it all perfectly with this epic TikTok:

“This was an iconic moment in American culture,” he said of Marilyn's famous fashion moment. “Not even just pop culture, American culture.”

"This dress was made for Kim," he continues. "Like, I know it was made for Marilyn, but Kim is technically the modern-day Marilyn Monroe."

This sign off, though, is everything: "And if Kim is Marilyn, Pete better be JFK. Okurrrr"

Welp, guess they were totally, 1000% correct. And Kim, of course, looks phenom.

Follow Natasha on Instagram.

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