Marilyn Monroe: a little-known eye for little-known creators

First the blonde, an oxygenated volume surrounding her famous face, then the red, on lips with a smile that emerges under an equally famous mole. The silhouette, finally, five feet five inches i.e. a meter sixty-six meter with the bust forward, the hips tight, the waist minimized. Marilyn Monroe is an image before being a womanan image covered with other images, buried under the fable, subject to all fantasies, so much so that the tormented Norma Jeane Baker, who hid below, remains, for many, an unknown person. However, it is she who, born in the City of Angels on June 1, 1926, would celebrate her centenary today.

Child left to her own devices, become star among stars, icon among icons, the history of fashion remembers her especially the dresses – the white one lifted by the wind Seven Years Itchthe crystal chiffon of the president’s birthday, the rose and the gold of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but also black turtlenecks, v-necks, bikinis, high waisted pants. Far from the sets, Marilyn Monroe chose more sober clothes for herself, a wardrobe known for its glamour. What we know less is that it had, for the creators, a certain curiositya sense of style that preceded great reputations.

An Italian slant

When she left Los Angeles for New York in 1954, Marilyn Monroe frequented a shoe store on Park Avenue, a Ferragamo. The Italian shoemaker opened this address six years earlier, and his name is already circulating in the world of cinema. He devotes himself to Marilyn Monroe a boundless, totally reciprocal admiration, and imagine for her a special modèlepatented in 1956: a pair of closed-toe heels, with a height of approximately eleven centimeters, of which the heel is made of half wood and half steel.

She will bring her pairs to life and on screen. We will attribute to them, for her, part of her famous wavy gait ; for him, the merit of having made the image of his brand more glamorous and more everyday. Salvatore Ferragamo nicknamed her in his memoirs “Venus†(one of the three categories in which he placed his clients), for women who wear size 36 shoes, beautiful and fascinating, but often misunderstood. Although he never met her, she will remain important to him. The brand will purchase a large part of the archives over time and its museum will dedicate an exhibition to it in 2013.

He will not, however, be the only Italian designer in the star’s life. With Emilio Pucci, the relationship was more intimate, almost existential. She discovered the brand in 1961, in a boutique on Fifth Avenue, and attached herself to it with a loyalty that was surprising. She collects pieces in several copieswears them with jeans or white pants, far from all the extravagance that is often associated with it. It’s a green Pucci blouse that she will wear during rehearsals for the Happy Birthday sung to Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in May 1962. It was also in a pale green Pucci dress, her favorite, that she would have been buried three months later.

Discover American talent

When she married Arthur Miller in 1956, it was at a certain Norman Norell that Marilyn Monroe orders her wedding dress. A fashion pioneer today readily highlighted as “the American Balenciaga†, he had just taken over in his name the label that he had founded ten years earlier with an associate, and it was he who founded, in 1962, the CFDA to defend young American fashion. If he was already established, he had the reputation of an austere, unglamorous creator, a dimension which changed with the icon.

Among his favorites, there was also a Parisian Russian namedOleg Cassini. She met him more closely. An affair, they say. He had just founded his own house in 1950, when Marilyn Monroe began wearing his creations for her first major public appearances. The same Cassini would become, a few years later, the “secretary of style” of Jackie Kennedy and close to Grace Kelly. While it would be unfair to make the star a career launcher (some of these names have never really penetrated beyond informed circles), it is undeniable that she had a sincere interest and a singular loyalty for young creators.