This is what Marilyn Monroe’s dress designer has to say about Kim K wearing her dress

(Image credit: Getty Images for The Met Museum/)

It's been a couple of weeks since the Met Gala, but we're all still talking about Kim Kardashian's Marilyn Monroe dress. To quickly refresh your memory, the entrepreneur borrowed the iconic gown the late actor wore to sing Happy Birthday to JFK in 1962.

She is the only person to ever wear it apart from Marilyn herself, and lost wait to fit into it, since the dress could not be altered. It had to be handled with white gloves, and she only wore it for a few minutes on the red carpet, before changing into a decoy dress to avoid damaging the original.

While some thought she looked incredible, others thought her weight loss to fit into it was a little extreme, or that the dress should have been left to be admired in its museum. Now, the designer of the dress himself has waded in on the debate.

Bob Mackie was a couturier for Paramount Studios, and designed the crystal-covered gown at the tender age of 23, without realising it was for Marilyn. He told Entertainment Weekly, 'I thought it was a big mistake.'

He expanded, '[Marilyn] was a goddess. A crazy goddess, but a goddess. She was just fabulous. Nobody photographs like that. And it was done for her. It was designed for her. Nobody else should be seen in that dress.'

Mackie added that having the dress out of its controlled environment would no doubt have damaged it, since things like oxygen would be detrimental to its preservation.

Penny Goldstone

Penny Goldstone is the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire, covering everything from catwalk trends to royal fashion and the latest high street and Instagram must-haves.

Penny grew up in France and studied languages and law at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris before moving to the UK for her MA in multimedia journalism at Bournemouth University. She moved to the UK permanently and has never looked back (though she does go back regularly to stock up on cheese and wine).

Although she's always loved fashion - she used to create scrapbooks of her favourite trends and looks, including Sienna Miller and Kate Moss' boho phase - her first job was at MoneySavingExpert.com, sourcing the best deals for everything from restaurants to designer sales.

However she quit after two years to follow her true passion, fashion journalism, and after many years of internships and freelance stints at magazines including Red, Cosmopolitan, Stylist and Good Housekeeping, landed her dream job as the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire UK.

Her favourite part of the job is discovering new brands and meeting designers, and travelling the world to attend events and fashion shows. Seeing her first Chanel runway IRL at Paris Fashion Week was a true pinch-me moment.