narcissism. sacrilege. Attention seeking. Vandalism! A small selection of the labels that Kim Kardashian’s dress-up party was pasted on Monday. Critics in question were costume conservators and other fashion enthusiasts who find it completely unethical for Kardashian to wear the transparent glitter dress in which Marilyn Monroe in 1962 John F. Kennedy ‘Happy Birthday Mister President sang. The real dress, not a fake. Even though Kardashian only wore it on the red carpet and swapped it with a replica as soon as she got in.
Sarah Scaturro of the Cleveland Museum of Art, spoke out strongly against Kardashian’s act with other fashion professionals The Los Angeles Times† Scaturro was previously a restorer of the Metropolitan Costume Institute, organizer of the annual Met Ball.
Madelief Hohé, curator of fashion and costume at the Kunstmuseum The Hague, also finds it painfully unprofessional. “Someone should have told Kardashian, who apparently never hears no, that this is not how you deal with cultural heritage,” she says over the phone. ‘The fabric is wafer thin and fragile, the weight of the thousands of beads makes it harmful to just keep the dress upright, let alone parade in it and climb stairs. Some people say it’s just a dress! But that’s like calling the Mona Lisa “just a painting.”
‘A good museum is a member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and adheres to the ethical rules associated with heritage, such as: museum clothing may under no circumstances be worn. Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, the owner of the dress, is not a traditional museum but a mix of memorabilia cabinet and wax museum, and not affiliated with the ICOM. The employees wore, no doubt well-intentioned, white gloves when they helped Kardashian into the dress the first time, but since the dress was still way too tight at the time, their lashing put way too much pressure on sewing and material. Painful, like cutting off a piece of the Mona Lisa.’