How Marilyn Monroe’s white cocktail dress made history

Marilyn Monroe statues [Photo: Courtesy]

One Manhattan night in 1954, an ivory-white cocktail dress made cinematic history when it collided with an upward breeze. That unforgettable moment, from the whimsical comedy The Seven Year Itch, had everything to do with the person wearing the dress.

In Billy Wilder’s film, Marilyn Monroe stars as a guileless model who keeps her underwear in the fridge and dunks potato chips in her Champagne. A summer of flirtation with her downstairs neighbour leads to the climactic scene when, after the pair catch a movie on 52nd Street, Monroe pauses over a subway grate to savour a cool blast of air from a passing train -- “Isn’t it delicious?” she says in her jingling Betty Boop voice, as her dress takes flight.