Marilyn Monroe 'Seven Year Itch' Subway Dress

'That silly little dress'

William Travilla, known professionally as Travilla, was a Los Angeles-born costume designer who won an Academy Award in 1949 for Adventures of Don Juan. He began working with Marilyn Monroe at 20th Century-Fox in 1952 on Don't Bother to Knock, went on to design her costumes for eight films, and later said the two had a brief affair. His work for her includes the pink gown from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

For The Seven Year Itch he needed a dress that could move. In his own words, quoted in a book of his designs, he wanted to make Monroe look 'clean, talcum-powdered, and adorable' and asked himself what she could wear 'that would blow in the breeze and be fun and pretty.' He chose a rayon-acetate crepe with sunburst pleats, heavy enough to swing as she walked and light enough to lift in a draft.

One book on Hollywood costume claims Travilla bought the dress off the rack rather than designing it. Travilla denied that. He did not treat the piece as a masterpiece either: he later dismissed it as 'that silly little dress.'

What the dress is

It is a light ivory cocktail dress in a style popular in the 1950s and 1960s. The halter bodice is made of two pieces of softly pleated cellulose acetate that meet behind the neck, leaving the arms, shoulders and back bare, with a plunging neckline. The halter attaches to a band just under the bust, and the dress fits closely from there to the natural waist.

A narrow self belt wraps the torso, crosses in front and ties in a small bow at the front left of the waist. Below it falls a softly pleated skirt to mid-calf or a little lower. A zipper closes the back of the bodice, and tiny buttons fasten the back of the halter.

Age has changed it. Debbie Reynolds, its longtime owner, told Oprah Winfrey the dress had turned ecru 'because as you know it is very very old now.' A similar Travilla dress was worn by actress Roxanne Arlen in the 1962 film Bachelor Flat, so the film provenance is what sets this one apart.

One a.m. on Lexington Avenue

The Seven Year Itch was Billy Wilder's adaptation of George Axelrod's 1952 Broadway play, with Tom Ewell repeating his stage role as a summer bachelor tempted by the upstairs neighbor, played by Monroe. Censors forced Wilder to cut the affair that drives the play, and he later called it 'a nothing picture.' In the scene that matters here, the pair leave an air-conditioned showing of Creature from the Black Lagoon and Monroe stops over a subway grate to enjoy the updraft.

The street shoot was scheduled for about 1 a.m. on September 15, 1954, outside the Trans-Lux 52nd Street Theatre on Lexington Avenue. One account puts the crowd at 100 photographers and between 2,000 and 5,000 onlookers. The scene took about three hours and 14 takes, and Monroe wore two pairs of white underwear under the dress.

The crowd noise ruined the takes, so Wilder reshot the moment on a soundstage at Fox. The location photographs were used for publicity, and some sources say elements of both shoots ended up in the finished film. Monroe's husband, Joe DiMaggio, was there that night and left angry; after returning to California, Monroe filed for divorce.

The film opened in New York on June 3, 1955, and in Los Angeles on June 17. Against a budget of $1.8 million, it took in about $12 million at the box office.

From Travilla's closet to a record

After Monroe died in 1962, Travilla locked away the dress with many of the other costumes he had made for her. The collection went unseen for so long that it was rumored to be lost. After Travilla's death in 1990, his colleague Bill Sarris exhibited the clothes.

The dress then entered the collection of actress Debbie Reynolds, who had been gathering Hollywood costumes since the 1970 sale of MGM's props and wardrobe and hoped to put them in a museum. The timing of her purchase is reported inconsistently: Reynolds is quoted as saying she paid $200 for it in 1971, which conflicts with accounts that place it in Travilla's possession until 1990. This page reports both.

Her museum never opened. A planned home for the collection in Tennessee collapsed in bankruptcy, and in 2011 Reynolds, then 79, sold it to pay creditors. On June 18, 2011, at auction in Beverly Hills, the subway dress led a sale of nearly 600 pieces and was estimated at $1 million to $2 million. The hammer fell at $4.6 million. One report gives the total with commission as $5.52 million; others describe about $1 million in commission on top of the bid. The buyer bid by phone and was not named. Reynolds was reported to be in tears when it sold.

In 2016 Monroe's own 'Happy Birthday, Mr. President' gown sold for $4.81 million. Guinness World Records counts that as the new record for a dress, about $200,000 above the subway dress's $4.6 million bid, though the subway dress's reported total with commission was higher.

The most copied pose in film

The image of Monroe above the grate has been called one of the most iconic of the 20th century. It has been restaged in films from The Woman in Red (1984, in a red dress) to Shrek 2 (2004), Blades of Glory (2007) and The House Bunny (2008). In a Cancer Research UK survey, it was voted the top iconic celebrity fashion moment of all time.

The pose became public sculpture too. Seward Johnson's 26-foot, 34,000-pound statue 'Forever Marilyn' recreates it and has stood in Chicago, Palm Springs and New Jersey. The scene itself echoes a gag in a 1901 short film, What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City, in which a grate blows up a woman's skirt.

The numbers

Film release

June 3, 1955 (New York); June 17, 1955 (Los Angeles)

Director

Billy Wilder

Budget

$1.8 million

Box office

$12 million

Location takes

14, over about three hours

Timeline

1. 1952

   Travilla begins designing for Monroe at 20th Century-Fox, starting with Don't Bother to Knock.

2. Sep 15, 1954

   About 1 a.m., Monroe shoots the subway-grate scene on Lexington Avenue before a large crowd.

3. 1954

   The scene is reshot on a Fox soundstage; filming runs from September to November.

4. Jun 3, 1955

   The Seven Year Itch opens in New York.

5. Jun 17, 1955

   The film opens in Los Angeles.

6. 1962

   Monroe dies; Travilla keeps the dress locked away with her other costumes.

7. 1971

   Debbie Reynolds later said she bought the dress this year for $200; other accounts place it with Travilla until 1990.

8. Nov 2, 1990

   Travilla dies; his colleague Bill Sarris later exhibits the costumes.

9. Jun 18, 2011

   The dress sells at auction in Beverly Hills for $4.6 million hammer, $5.52 million with commission.

10. Nov 17, 2016

    Monroe's 'Happy Birthday, Mr. President' gown sells for $4.81 million; Guinness World Records lists it as the new record for a dress at auction.

The world in 1955

• Jan 8, 1955

  The Lincoln Futura concept car, later the Batmobile, debuts at the Chicago Auto Show.

• Apr 12, 1955

  Jonas Salk's polio vaccine receives full approval.

• Apr 15, 1955

  Ray Kroc opens his first McDonald's in Des Plaines, Illinois.

• Sep 26, 1955

  Debbie Reynolds marries singer Eddie Fisher.

• Sep 30, 1955

  James Dean is killed in a car crash near Cholame, California.

• Oct 4, 1955

  The Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series over the New York Yankees.

• Dec 1, 1955

  Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Marilyn Monroe 'Seven Year Itch' Subway Dress is number 15 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (16 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Travilla, who designed it, dismissed it as 'that silly little dress.'
• The famous street shoot was largely unusable because of crowd noise, so the scene was reshot on a soundstage.
• Monroe wore two pairs of white underwear for the subway-grate shoot.
• Debbie Reynolds said the dress had aged to ecru.
• In the film, Monroe and Tom Ewell have just been to see Creature from the Black Lagoon.
• Guinness World Records now lists Monroe's own 'Happy Birthday' gown, sold in 2016, as the most expensive dress at auction, comparing it with this dress's $4.6 million bid.
• A Travilla dress much like it turned up on another actress in the 1962 film Bachelor Flat.