Insight on the Costumes in Netflix’s New Marilyn Monroe Biopic ‘Blonde’
Since the Netflix release of the fictionalized Marilyn Monroe biographical film, Blonde, many fashion critics have analyzed the film’s fashion in comparison to the star’s iconic costumes. The film starring Ana de Armas, Cuban-Spanish actress, as Marilyn Monroe detailed Monroe's life and her career defining moments.
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During Monroe’s career, she wore many iconic costumes that are still referenced in pop culture today. For example, this past May, Kim Kardashian broke news for wearing Monroe’s identical sheer rhinestone dress during the 2022 Met Gala. The iconic dress was worn by Monroe in 1962 during her performance of “Happy Birthday Mr. President” to John F. Kennedy on his 45th birthday. This sparked the conversation on the importance of preserving historical fashion pieces.
It is important to note that since the release of the movie on September 16th, 2022, many criticisms have been voiced by viewers and critics. Many were concerned that Monroe’s true story was not represented accurately in the movie and others critiqued the graphic scenes in the film that were seen as exploitative. Despite these criticisms, I will only be mentioning the design process and the intensive work that went into making the costumes.
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Jennifer Johnson, award-winning costume director, replicated iconic costumes with the help of patternmaker, Jose Bello. Johnson reportedly conducted immense research for the project and wanted to capture the essence of Monroe’s costumes and everyday style. “It’s easy enough to copy something verbatim; it's another thing to bring something so iconic that is imbued in the world’s psyche back from the dead,” stated Johnson. She continued to point out that she did not want the costumes to overshadow Armas. Instead, she wanted the costumes to complement the actress and her performance.
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The strapless pink satin gown with a large bow was featured in the film, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, during Monroe’s dance sequence to “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”, in 1953. When duplicating the dress, Johnson looked at the original sketches by Monroe’s favorite costume designer, William Travilla. When designing the original dress, Travilla found that the dress did not move correctly when Monroe was walking down a flight of stairs during her performance. So, Johnson used different supporting fabric when recreating the dress.
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The white pleated halter dress Monroe wore in The Seven Year Itch, was reportedly the most difficult to recreate. The dress was famously photographed with Monroe standing on top of a subway grate in New York City and air blowing the dress up in 1954. The intricate pleating process reportedly required over 45 meters of fabric.
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The recreation of Monroe’s off-screen 1957 blue polka-dot summer dress showed that Johnson focused more on recreating the essence of the star through costume, rather than creating a replica of the dress. The color and silhouette of the replica was not exact to the original, but still captured Monroe’s spirit. Johnson wanted her off-screen clothes to look as natural as possible to complement Armas’s figure.
Courtesy of Netflix and Getty Images
The recreation of the black and flesh-colored silk chiffon robe in the 1959 film, Some Like It Hot, was the most labor intensive out of all of the costumes created for the movie. The robe was made with silk chiffon, netting, and crystals that were hand beaded. There was padding in the dress to give Armas’s figure more weight, which was the only time Johnson used padding in the movie.
At the end of the day, Johnson strived to pay Marilyn Monroe proper homage and the costumes that she created with her team reflected just that.