The gown’s iconic.. Kim isn’t

I GASPED when I saw it – just as the audience did when Marilyn Monroe peeled off her white fur stole at John F Kennedy’s fundraiser in 1962.

Last night, 6,000 crystals handsewn on the dress dazzled under camera flashes and over Kim Kardashian’s Skims lingerie.

It was a marketing masterstroke: Kim vacuumed all attention from the other A-list guests at the Met Gala.

Explaining it to my triplet 13-year-old daughters over breakfast, who had already seen a Tiktok frenzy about the dress, we Youtubed the moment Marilyn stepped from behind a podium to shrieks of approval. Her impossibly sexy, breathy rendition of Happy Birthday double-sealed the moment as iconic.

Then I read Kim’s story in a Vogue interview published just before the gala as part of the perfect PR package. And I grew less impressed.

Marilyn’s dress, sold for £4million at auction in 2016, was shipped to Kim’s home by private plane, flicking two fingers at environmental concerns.

And it turns out Marilyn was smaller than Kim. Talking of her efforts to lose 16lbs quickly, Kim said: “When it didn’t fit me I wanted to cry because it can’t be altered.” So Kim wore a “sauna suit” twice a day, exercised and stuck to a strict diet.

She wants the world to know this but I don’t want my daughters or any other impressionable fans to hear it.

I imagined a plaque beside the dress in a museum. Until last night it could have said: “Worn by one woman only: Marilyn Monroe… icon.” Now it will need to add: “And reality TV star Kim Kardashian.” I am no longer wowed by the PR genius behind Kim’s Met Gala outfit. Instead I feel sad.