Despite her megastardom, Marilyn Monroe didn’t sweep award seasons during her Old Hollywood heyday. In fact, the 1962 Golden Globe awards is one of the few occasions that the actor ever received an award for her talents. That year, Monroe won the Henrietta Award for World Film Favorite Female (prior to that, she had also won two other Golden Globes). Naturally, she rose to the occasion in her signature, bombshell style, wearing a gown that deserves to be remembered.
Monroe hit the stage in a fitted, V-neck sequined dress by one of fashion’s most slept-on designers, Norman Norell. (Fans have also speculated that the diamond earrings Monroe wore that night were also gifted to her by Frank Sinatra.) In a deep emerald green, the gown Norell designed for Monroe still looks surprisingly fresh and current today: any A-list star could slip into it for an awards show this year, and nobody would ever suspect that it’s from seven decades ago.
This wasn’t the first time Monroe wore a Norell original. She was a big fan of Norell’s work, and she wore many of the American designer’s pieces over the years. (She even wore him on her wedding day to Arthur Miller in 1956.) Yet Norell, who died in 1972, is a name that has failed to capture mainstream attention today—even though his work rivaled the greatest talents at the time, such as Cristóbal Balenciaga in Paris. In fact, he earned the moniker, “The American Balenciaga,” thanks to the couture techniques he incorporated into his designs. With his sophisticated, distinctly American glamour, he inspired many American designers that followed him, such as Bill Blass, Ralph Lauren, and Marc Jacobs. So, who was this mysterious talent?
Originally from Noblesville, Indiana, Norell got his start in fashion when he briefly worked as a costume designer for Paramount Pictures in the 1920s. After working for labels such as Hattie Carnegie in the 1930s, Norell began his own design firm with partner Anthony Traina, called Traina-Norell, in the ’40s and ’50s, but eventually founded his own label in Manhattan in 1960. He quickly became the go-to dresser for stars such as Monroe and Lauren Bacall, who favored his ability to create dresses that were sleek, streamlined, and innately glamorous. He was particularly known for his sequined “mermaid” dresses, such as the style Monroe wore to the Globes, which consisted of long, jersey column gowns covered in sequins and often finished with deep-V necklines.
According to the book Marilyn in Manhattan: Her Year of Joy, Norell and Monroe instantly bonded over their love of theatre. He played a huge role in shaping the image we associate her with today, always making sure she looked like the part of a true Hollywood star. Monroe wore his copper gown to the 1955 premiere of Broadway’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and a year later, his black deep-V sequin dress—with a fur slung overtop—to a Baby Doll premiere, among other moments. Norell particularly enjoyed refining Monroe’s vampy, sexpot image. “Everything had to be skintight,” Norell is quoted as saying in Marilyn in Manhattan. “You had to reinforce every seam or everything would break.” Monroe, meanwhile, loved the designs he created for her so much that she would even have copies of his originals made by cheaper Seventh Avenue dressmakers.
The Golden Globes dress Norell made for Monroe is still one of his most famous creations for her to date—and it has now become a serious collector’s piece, too. It sold at a Christie’s auction of her estate back in 1999, fetching a cool $96,000. In 2018, the Golden Globe trophy she won that year was also sold at an auction for a record-breaking $250,000. It may seem like a hefty price tag for an evening gown or accolade, but it’s a piece of history worn by a Hollywood icon and designed by the maker who helped cultivate her image. It’s also one of the most memorable Golden Globes fashion moments in history—that’s almost priceless—but to everyone’s surprise, the dress had more nights-out in its future.
In 2022, well aware of the piece’s lore, Kim Kardashian turned up to a Met Gala after-party in the very dress. Her accessory: The actual Golden Globe Monroe won while wearing it. Kardashian s look famously followed yet another Monroe piece—the "naked" dress Monroe wore in 1962 (produced by Hollywood costume designer Jean-Louis based on a sketch by Bob Mackie) to serenade President John F. Kennedy on his 45th birthday. Kardashian, of course, wore the sheer ensemble up the ascending the Met steps.
Days before the May 2022 gala, Kardashian told Vogue: “The idea really came to me after the gala in September last year. I thought to myself, what would I have done for the American theme if it had not been the Balenciaga look? What’s the most American thing you can think of? And that’s Marilyn Monroe,” says Kardashian. The instant she stepped foot on the red carpet wearing the infamous glittering dress, her hair platinum blonde and perfectly coiffed, the reference was unmistakable. “For me the most Marilyn Monroe moment is when she sang “Happy Birthday,” to JFK, it was that look.”
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While much attention went to Kardashian in the “Happy Birthday” dress, her second, after-party look is equally worth marveling. In an Instagram post, Kardashian revealed the backstory of the green sequined dress: “To top off my night after The Met, I had the honor of changing into Marilyn Monroe s Norman Norell dress that she wore to the Golden Globes in 1962 —where she received the Henrietta Award For World Film Favorite. In my quest to find the Jean Louis hand beaded dress that I wore to the gala, I discovered @heritageauctions owned Marilyn’s iconic green sequined gown. Further into my research I found out that the owner of the Golden Globe that she received that evening was none other than my friend @jeffleatham. I saw this all as a sign the way that all of the stars aligned. It will forever be one of the greatest privileges of my life to be able to channel my inner Marilyn in this way, on such a special night. Thank you Heritage Auctions, Barbara Zweig and Jeff for helping to make this memory possible.”
While the “Happy Birthday” dress is certainly more well-known—it cemented Monroe as America’s bombshell—the Norell is the gown that symbolized Monroe, the actor. Lest we all forget, Monroe was a celebrated thespian who collected accolades throughout her all-too-short career—2 BAFTA nominations and 2 Golden Globe wins. A lesson not to let the shimmer of a woman’s dress eclipse the wearer.
