Marilyn's White Dress: Re-Creating The Look
You don’t have to be an actor like Willem Dafoe to recreate Marilyn’s look. You don’t even have to have seen the film. “Even if you have never seen a movie in your life,” reads the description for the officially licensed Halloween costume below, “your probably know who Marilyn Monroe is.”
Blonde, white halter dress, skirt blowing up. It’s an image America has taken in, digested, off-branded, elevated. To some it might be nostalgic, glamorous. To some it might be a commentary on sexuality in America (repressed much?), to some it might simply be visually satisfying.
Or, as the product description continues, “This glamorous getup makes every car you step out of feel like a limousine, and every group photo and selfie you take seem like there are glittering flashbulbs going off all around you as you strut down the red carpet."
In terms of a Halloween costume that’s instantly recognizable without a lot of detail or the use of props, Marilyn’s dress can’t be beat. The design can be streamlined down to a backless halter dress with full circle skirt in cheap polyester, and still look surprisingly elegant. A pared-down version can also be made relatively easily by home sewers. as in this YouTube tutorial with Micarah Tewers, who manages to outline the steps for creating a simplified version (“Cut a rectangle of fabric about the size of a skateboard”) in just 48 seconds.
Alternately, artisans have pored over the dress’ construction and details in an attempt to be as true to Travilla’s design as possible. The host of the Stitch My Style YouTube channel, for example, underwent a process that took about three months, including, after much trial and error, enlisting the services of a professional pleater. The final product is breathtaking—in her dress, Stitch My Style is empowered, joyful. More Marilyn than any more-blonde Marilyn from some bad (or good) biopic.
While it appears to be acceptable to wear and/or make the dress as a Halloween costume, experiencing it as a 34,000-pound sculpture is another thing. Created in 2011, Seward Johnson’s Forever Marilyn has traveled all over the world and is now currently installed in Palm Springs—yet has forever been a source of controversy. While tourists have enjoyed it, according to Artnet News, the Chicago Sun Times called it “’hideous,’ noting that “Even worse than the sculpture itself is the photo-op behavior it’s inspiring. Men (and women) licking Marilyn’s leg, gawking up her skirt, pointing at her giant panties as they leer and laugh.”
Even though Marilyn is long gone in her earthly form, it somehow feels like her agency is being taken away from her all over again, that she is being re-objectified, by both the leg lickers and those who have called for the removal of the statue. That people are still punishing a woman for appearing as a sexual being, even if that woman is 26 feet tall and made of stainless steel. That people are deciding on her behalf that this likeness is sexist, that it’s, as reported in The New York Times, “sexually charged and disrespectful.”
Disrespectful to whom? Aren’t we all sexually charged?
Interesting take on this scene in Ken Russell's Tommy, via MissMacabre at You Remind Me of the Frame blog: “We get a shot of her broken face on the ground, her lips smashed and her mouth a gaping hole. Maybe now, with her lips unpursed and her mouth away from this forever kissing pose, she can have a voice of her own.”