Kim Kardashian was so determined to wear Marilyn Monroe’s iconic dress to the 2022 Met Gala Monday night, she ditched her usual beauty routine and took major precautions before and during the event to preserve the gown ― even if she only wore it for a few minutes.
Kardashian told Vogue that she first tried on Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress from 1962 in Calabasas, California, after it was flown to her home by private plane. The gown is normally kept at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum in Orlando, Florida.
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“The dress was transported by guards and I had to wear gloves to try it on,” Kardashian said.
On the night of the gala, the Skims founder didn’t change into the dress until she arrived at her final destination. Kardashian said she left her hotel on Monday in just a fitting gown, and changed into the historic dress in a small room at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In the room, a conservationist from Ripley’s helped Kardashian with the dress, while again wearing white gloves.
And after Kardashian walked up the stairs ― something she had to practice beforehand ― she changed out of Monroe’s actual gown and donned a replica.
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As Vogue points out, that means the reality star really only wore the original gown “for a matter of minutes.”
“I’m extremely respectful to the dress and what it means to American history,” Kardashian said. “I would never want to sit in it or eat in it or have any risk of any damage to it, and I won’t be wearing the kind of body makeup I usually do.”
She also told Vogue that she chose to lose weight in order to wear the original dress.
“I tried it on and it didn’t fit me. I said, ‘Give me three weeks,’” Kardashian told La La Anthony, her friend and a Vogue correspondent for the night, on the red carpet Monday.
“I had to lose 16 pounds down today,” she added, as the dress couldn’t be altered in any way.
Kardashian told Vogue that she “didn’t starve” herself for the gown, but she was “so strict” in her routine.
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“I would wear a sauna suit twice a day, run on the treadmill, completely cut out all sugar and all carbs, and just eat the cleanest veggies and protein,” she said.
Kardashian walked the red carpet alongside her boyfriend, Pete Davidson, two days after the couple made their official red carpet debut at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night.
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