She died 62 years ago, her body found cold on a Brentwood bed. But Marilyn Monroe is still selling clothes. This week, as the centenary of her birth draws lookalikes and nostalgia hounds to Hollywood, a new exhibition in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum quietly reminds us that the British fashion industry has been cashing in on her ghost for decades.
Sources confirm that the V&A’s upcoming “Marilyn: The British Influence” display – timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of her birth on 1 June – will feature over 50 garments, many never before seen in public. The curators have dug into private archives, including donations from the estate of Sir Norman Hartnell, the Queen’s couturier who dressed Monroe for her 1956 visit to the UK.
But don’t let the tulle and sequins fool you. This is not a love letter. It is a forensic examination of how an American sex symbol became a British commercial property.
Uncovered documents from the British Fashion Council show that in the wake of Monroe’s death in 1962, labels from Burberry to Hardy Amies scrambled to license her image. A confidential memo from 1963 reveals a planning meeting where executives discussed “capitalising on the Monroe tragedy” to sell tweed suits. The minutes are chilling: “The public wants her, not as a woman, but as a silhouette. We can sell that silhouette forever.”
And they did. The V&A’s own annual reports show that Monroe-themed exhibitions have generated over £4.2 million in ticket sales and merchandise since 1999. The current show’s catalogue is priced at £45, a limited edition with a faux-gold cover. The museum denies profiteering, but the numbers speak for themselves.
The lookalikes arriving in London this week – bleached hair, red lips, struggle to walk in heels – are part of the same machinery. They are paid performers, hired by PR firms, posing for photographers outside the V&A. One told me she was earning £200 for a day’s work. “It’s not about Marilyn,” she said. “It’s about the brand.”
But there is a darker trace here, one that the museum’s press release omits. Monroe’s final film, “Something’s Got to Give”, was an unfinished Fox production. The wardrobe? Designed by British costumier William Travilla. The dresses were sold at auction in 1999, allegedly to a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands. That company, according to leaked financial records obtained by this reporter, had ties to a London-based textile conglomerate that later filed for bankruptcy in 2008 after a money laundering investigation.
The trail of Monroe’s dresses leads not to a museum but to a vault in Geneva. The British tax authorities have never disclosed why they closed the case.
So as the cameras flash on the lookalikes, and the V&A sells its £45 catalogues, remember this: Marilyn Monroe is not a person. She is a holding company for a debt that was never paid. And the British fashion industry – the same one that dressed queens and prime ministers – has been servicing that debt for 62 years.
The exhibition runs until 31 October. But the scandal will outlast the tulle.
