Featured Image Credit: Ripley's Believe It Or Not/Instagram. Abaca Press / Alamy Stock Photo.
Topics: Celebrity, Kim Kardashian
Rachel Lang
Topics: Celebrity, Kim Kardashian
New footage has emerged of Kim Kardashian trying to squeeze her voluptuous body into Marilyn Monroe's iconic 'Happy Birthday' dress ahead of the 2022 Met Gala.
In raw footage obtained by TMZ, staff from Florida's Ripley's Believe It Or Not! museum can be seen struggling for several minutes to get the dress over the 41-year-old's backside.
The problem, in a nutshell, was that the dress wouldn't zip up over her bum.
So they came up with a solution: to wrap a white, vintage fur stole around her to conceal the partially fastened zipper.
Thankfully, PETA wasn't knocking about by the red carpet to throw paint all over the fur coat and the irreplaceable Monroe dress that set Ripleys! back US$4.8 million ($AUD 6.7 million, £3.8 million) when the museum bought it at auction.
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Here's the kicker though: Kardashian only wore the dress on the red carpet.
Once inside the Met Gala, the reality star dashed off to a private room to hand the dress back and to slip into a copy that fit her properly.
Her decision to wear the dress has already infuriated Monroe super fans, museum creators, and fashion experts.
The reality TV star has already been accused of sullying the 60-year-old beige, sparkly dress that Monroe wore during her 'Happy Birthday' performance to then-President John F. Kennedy back in 1962.
Monroe expert Michelle Morgan roasted curators at the Ripley's Believe It Or Not! museum, where the dress was being kept, for allowing Kardashian to don the frock.
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"The gown is extremely fragile and has been previously kept in temperature-controlled conditions, but now here it is, not only being worn, but also in a red carpet environment, where anything could have happened to it," the author of The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, the Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist told The New York Post.
Former head of the Met’s Costume Institute Sarah Scaturro also slammed the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star for even asking to wear the iconic dress.
"I’m frustrated because it sets back what is considered professional treatment for historic costume,” she told the LA Times.
"In the ‘80s, a bunch of costume professionals came together to state a resolution that historic costume should not be worn.
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"So my worry is that colleagues in historic costume collections are now going to be pressured by important people to let them wear garments."
Dr Justine De Young, professor of fashion history at the Fashion Institute of Technology, told People that Kim was 'irresponsible and unnecessary' for wearing it.
"She can –– and did –– commission a replica which would be indistinguishable from the original," Dr Young said.
"Such an iconic piece of American history should not be put at risk of damage just for an ego-boost and photo-op."