Dress You Up In My Love

It's all about the dresses today, and there are some famous ones in the news.

First up came the news a few days ago that whatever Kate Middleton, the new Duchess of Cambridge, wears, is golden. Several online companies which sell knock-offs of Kate's outfits reported last week that whatever dress Kate has worn in public in the past few weeks immediately sells out online. Some of her dress knock-offs sold out in minutes, especially the one she wore in May when she met U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama. As you can imagine, every designer in the world worth his/her salt is drooling for Kate to don one of their creations. Kate might not still be Princess Diana, but in star power, she's getting close.

Lady Gaga's infamous meat dress, which she wore on the 2010 MTV music awards show, and which was actually made of meat, will be on display at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland as part of an exhibit on women in rock. Evidently, the museum's curators dried the dress in an effort to preserve it, which gave it a "dried jerky" look, so the dress had to be painted to recreate its original look.

Can you imagine if Kate Middleton wore a dress made of pork chops? There wouldn't be a pig left in Britain.



And finally, Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds is auctioning off several legendary Hollywood outfits. Reynolds started collecting famous movie costumes back in the 1970's in an effort to rescue them when the studios began discarding them to the trash bins. Reynolds has spent millions over the years to create the most famous and comprehensive movie costume collection on earth, always with the hope that she could one day open a museum to permanently display the items. But financial problems are forcing Reynolds to sell the famous pieces in an auction which will take place tomorrow. Items up for sale include Reynold's own dress which she wore during the "Good Morning" number in the film, "Singin' In The Rain", (shown at right), as well as several of Elizabeth Taylor's costumes, including those from her "Cleopatra" movie.

But perhaps the most famous item going on the auction block will be Marilyn Monroe's iconic "subway dress" from the film, "The Seven Year Itch". The white, pleated number is expected to fetch over $2 million dollars. Wow.

The classic shot of Marilyn Monroe's dress blowing up around her legs as she stands over a subway grating, (shown here with co-star Tom Ewell), was originally shot on Manhattan's Lexington Avenue at 52nd St. on Sept. 15, 1954 at 1 AM. 5,000 onlookers whistled and cheered through take after take as Marilyn repeatedly missed her lines. Monroe's husband, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, was watching the whole thing and became increasingly embarrassed and angry by the scene. The original footage shot on that night in New York never made it to the screen; the noise of the crowd had made it unusable. So director Billy Wilder re-staged the scene on the 20th Century Fox lot, on a set replicating Lexington Avenue, and got a more satisfactory result. However, it took another 40 takes for Marilyn to achieve the famous scene.