Marilyn Monroe’s Personal Black Silk Cocktail Dress

From the personal wardrobe of Marilyn Monroe: A hand tailored, one of a kind cocktail dress in black silk, sleeveless with a plunging, gathered neckline and back zipper. The hem is weighted to keep the dress lying flat when worn. On May 20, 1959, Marilyn wore this dress to a ceremony at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City, where her husband Arthur Miller received their Gold Medal for Drama Award.

History

From the book The Genius & The Goddess:

On May 20, 1959 Miller was awarded the Gold Medal for Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the rather formal ceremony was sparked into life by Marilyn’s stunning appearance. A speech was dependable. Miller, on occasion, managed to be witty when he spoke, but you could always count on him to be pious in the last sentence of the first paragraph: ‘An honor which the artist perhaps would not part with, but never truly takes as his own, because labor freely given and the joyful misery of creating cannot be translated into a prize.’ Nevertheless, his presence was an event: Marilyn Monroe, then his wife, was in the audience.

Miller, well aware of her habits, arrived on time and without her. Marilyn came very late and at the very end of the luncheon. She was placed next to the seventy-eight-year-old Irish writer, Padraic Coum, who hadn’t minded the empty seat and truthfully claimed that he’d never heard of Marilyn Monroe. Wearing a very tight and very decollete black dress, with three strands of pearls and long white gloves, she sat demurely among the spectators. She knew she was on display – all eyes, as always, were riveted on her – and was smiling, charming, and self-possessed. The intellectuals and academicians were tremendously excited by her presence. Everyone was thrilled to be there and fought to get near the deity. Abandoning their customary reserve, they swarmed around her and swooned like a bunch of love-sick schoolboys. While Miller gave his pious speech, Marilyn quietly stole the show.”

Marilyn’s Evening Wear

Marilyn’s public wardrobe contained numerous black evening dresses. The 1999 Christie’s auction of her personal property revealed the extent of her collection. She favored black cocktail and evening dresses, most of them seamed, darted, and sometimes boned to emphasize her curves. These dresses were cool and elegant, every seam and stitch designed to highlight her luminous blonde beauty and lush fragility. This was the image she had carefully constructed for herself.

This dress was originally intended for the 1999 Christie’s auction of Marilyn’s personal property. The Christie’s tag remains pinned to the garment. It ultimately sold at Julien’s Auctions in 2005 from the Estate of Marilyn Monroe.