I’m very late to this party but it is so fucking funny to me that there is an entire ass TV show called The Gilded Age that JUST WRAPPED airing its first season.
The Story Behind Rihanna’s Red Carpet-Winning Met Gala Dress
Rihanna appeared on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in an imperial yellow, fur-trimmed cape that was embroidered with scrolls and scrolls and scrolls of flora (and a headdress!).
“I’m so in love with this dress, but the train is insane!” Rihanna told VF.com on the red carpet. “I can’t really walk in it without any help. But it’s so worth it. I love this dress so much! It’s Chinese couture and it’s made by Guo Pei. It’s handmade by one Chinese woman and it took her two years to make. I found it online.”
“I was researching Chinese couture on the Internet and I found it,” she said.
That makes fashion’s most-watched woman (pop diva, category) one of the few attendees at this year’s Met Gala (theme: “China: Through the Looking Glass”) to wear a Chinese designer. It also caps off a big moment for Pei, who is fresh off a collaboration with MAC Cosmetics and has two garments in the Met’s exhibition. She is a go-to designer for Chinese stars like Li Bingbing and Zhang Ziyi and has been profiled by the Wall Street Journal and the Times, but her name remains relatively unknown in Western fashion
[…]
The laborious production process for Pei’s garments is something of a signature. Her “Magnificent Gold” dress that appears in the Met show took 50,000 hours to make, Pei told the Cut, while her “Blue & Porcelain” dress, also on display, took 10,000 hours.
In a comment that seems prescient of Rihanna’s show-stopping look on Monday, Pei told the blog of her designs, “The focus and attention paid to this dress will make it remembered by the world—I want is to make them remember…. It is my responsibility to let the world know China’s tradition and past, and to give the splendour of China a new expression. I hope that people do know China in this way.”
So it happened. Kim Kardashian wore the Mr President dress at the Met Gala, 60 years after Marilyn dazzled in it.
But is it so tragic? Don’t get me wrong, I still have my moments of “seriously?!”.
BUT.
I have seen Ripley’s video of Kim trying the dress on and to me it appears she understands the importance of that dress and its place in history.
In comparison to what this new Netflix documentary is doing to Marilyn’s legacy and image, is Kim Kardashian wearing her dress for a hot second on a red carpet REALLY that bad? How is that different to other impersonators or people who wore Marilyn’s dresses over time?
My biggest problem is the message Kim is sending to women: you need to lose weight to fit into a dress worn by an iconic woman to be special. Why not just wear a replica? Why not honor Marilyn with your own brand of original to juj it up?
Marilyn was an original and that’s why she is remembered.
At the end of the day, my issues still rest with people like Summers, Mailer, Slatzer and the rest of the money-hungry who keep destroying Marilyn’s legacy with their own brand of lies. I believe Kim’s intentions weren’t malicious and so I cannot simply attack her for the sole act of wearing her dress. Many private owners of Marilyn memorabilia selfishly hide their possessions away in bank safes, never to see the light of day again until they want to cash in on it at auctions. Ripley’s probably saw it as an opportunity to display it to more people. And I personally think Kim intended to honor Marilyn’s legacy and iconic image that still lives on to this day.
As Marilyn once said, the people made me a star. Perhaps Kim is proving her right: the people and history will decide who is the icon and who is the follower.
