Fashion royalty Bob Mackie has an issue with Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe’s classic dress.
After Kim graced the Met Gala red carpet wearing Marilyn’s gown earlier this month, the internet had mixed reactions.
The dress was originally donned by the Hollywood icon when she sang her legendary breathy rendition of the “Happy Birthday” song to then-president John F. Kennedy for his 45th birthday.
Mackie, the costume designer who sketched Marilyn’s iconic dress just months before she died, knocked the reality TV star for rewearing the dazzling dress to the event, Entertainment Weekly reported.
“I thought it was a big mistake,” he revealed to the outlet.
In Mackie’s opinion, no one should have ever worn the dress except the “goddess” herself.
“[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,” he said. “Nobody else should be seen in that dress.”
The heavy criticism the former Keeping Up With The Kardashians star received wasn’t the only difficult thing about sporting the outfit.
Kim said she had to lose 16 pounds in three weeks to squeeze into the garment because it wouldn’t fully zip over her frame.
“I would wear a sauna suit twice a day, run on the treadmill, completely cut out all sugar and all carbs, and just eat the cleanest veggies and protein,” she told Vogue on the red carpet. “I didn’t starve myself, but I was so strict.”
Despite her dieting and exercising, the dress only partially fastened causing her to rock a white, vintage fur coat that draped over the exposed zipper.
Kim marked only the second time in history that the famous garment was tried on, according to an Instagram post from Ripley’s museum, which housed the dress.
The fashionista worked alongside the museum to preserve the piece of pop culture by carefully transporting it with gloves and ensuring she only wore the dress for a limited period of time on the red carpet.
She didn’t change into the dress until she was ready to stroll the red carpet, she said.
When Kim left her hotel on the day of the event, she wore just a fitting gown and changed into the dress in a small room at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
After the initial big reveal on the red carpet, she changed into a replica dress to protect the original.
Even with Kim’s extra measures to preserve the dress and the blonde bombshell’s legacy, Mackie wasn’t the only person to denounce her tribute.
Twitter users also shared their opinions of the starlet’s red carpet moment.