Bob Mackie says Kim Kardashian in Marilyn Monroe’s gown ‘a big mistake’
The outfit Kim Kardashian squeezed into for the 2022 Met Gala was a fashion faux pas.
That’s according to fashion designer Bob Mackie, who said the reality TV superstar made a “big mistake” by wearing the same gown Marilyn Monroe wore to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy, Jr. at Madison Square Garden 60 years earlier.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/EQO66NJ2MJFQ7N2T5FMA4OLLAA.jpg "Bob Mackie says Kim Kardashian in Marilyn Monroe’s gown ‘a big mistake’")
“I thought it was a big mistake,” the 82-year-old designer told Entertainment Weekly. “[Marilyn] was a goddess. A crazy goddess, but a goddess. She was just fabulous. Nobody photographs like that. And it was done for her. It was designed for her. Nobody else should be seen in that dress.”
Mackie, known for sculpting iconic looks for the likes of Diana Ross, Cher, Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli during the height of their careers, was the 23-year-old apprentice to Oscar-nominated, French designer Jean Louis, who made the shimmering skintight rhinestone gown.
The Tony Award-winning Television Hall of Famer drew the sketch for the original gown and said that Louis didn’t know the exact occasion the Hollywood bombshell would wear the original design to.
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During the Anna Wintour-helmed, star-studded fund-raising event for the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute earlier this month, Kardashian and the dress made a splashy grand finale on the red carpet.
With her latest beau, Pete Davidson, on her arm, the curvy billionairess carefully walked up the grand staircase of the museum and posed for photographers before reportedly changing into a replica to wear for the remainder of the festivities.
“I had to lose 16 pounds to be able to fit it,” Kardashian confessed to her close friend La La Anthony, who served as correspondent for Vogue’s livestream of the event. “It was like a role. I was determined to do it.”
Monroe was famously romantically linked to Kennedy and his brother Sen. Robert Kennedy. The “Gentlemen Prefers Blonds” star died mysteriously months later at age 36.
The flesh-toned gown, which reportedly cost $12,000 in 1962, was reportedly acquired by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for more than $5 million in 2016 – which Forbes considered the “world’s most expensive.”