She might not be a movie star synonymous with wearing latex couture, but Marilyn Monroe is surely an icon. Had she lived, the quintessential ‘blonde bombshell’ would have turned 100 on June 1st . And to celebrate this milestone….there have been auctions popping up selling some of her personal items.
At the beginning of this week a Dallas-based auction of the star’s memorabilia made just about $2.5 million. Items plucked from the estate of Miss Monroe’s friends Norman and Hedda Rosten, there were letters, photos and jewelry for sale, and plenty of Monroe clothing, as to be expected. For instance, the Christian Dior suit Marilyn wore for her honeymoon with Joe DiMaggio sold for over four hundred thousand dollars, breaking a record for a non-performance Monroe outfit.
But don’t feel left out if you missed the 1st sale or didn’t have time to run to the bank. At an Julien’s Auction happening today, you could snatch a gold-plated lipstick tube (with hot pink lipstick still residing inside it) for seven thousand dollars. There are also photographs and transparencies from her 1954 trip to Japan with Joe DiMaggio (never-before-seen) or what is being offered at the highest price in this lot of items, a minaudière evening purse.
As these are personal items, there are also two bras of M.M.’s being auctioned, that have already seen bids up to five thousand for each.
Snatching one of those bras is on the lesser-priced end of what Marilyn Monroe garments can fetch at auction. The Dior suit mentioned above, her famous “Subway,” dress (the one that floats up around her knees during the subway grate scene in The Seven Year Itch,) sold for $4.6 million. But the highest price paid for a piece of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia stands at $4.8 million, set in November 2016, when Ripley’s Believe It or Not! purchased Monroe’s infamous “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress . Worn on May 19, 1962, for President John F. Kennedy’s birthday gala, the bespoke Jean Louis “nude illusion” gown was covered in over 2,500 hand-stitched crystals and 6,000 rhinestones and made of sheer, flesh-colored gauze.
It so hugged Monroe’s famous curves she had to be sewn into it right before she took the stage.
