All the secrets of Marilyn Monroe's last dress

In the sculpture of Paolo Schmidlin, Marilyn Monroe she appears frozen in a sort of eternal grace. With her hands clasped in the coffin, she wears a sublime lime green fitted dress and a scarf of the same shade, with an impeccable hairstyle. Perfectly cared for, with an intact elegance: the artist represented the Hollywood icon as her fans wanted to remember her: glamorous forever. The actress's last hours remain the object of a certain fantasy, like her life. But a myth persists: the one according to which Marilyn was buried in her favorite Pucci dress.

It was love at first sight between the Italian fashion house and the American star. Passionate about Emilio Pucci's ultra-feminine cuts, distinctive patterns and vibrant colors, Marilyn was buried onAugust 8, 1962 with a model that he had worn a few months earlier during a trip to Mexico.

On August 5, 1962, Eunice Murray discovers the star's lifeless body in the garden of his Los Angeles home. The absolute icon of the Seventh Art was dead, at the age of 36. In his book Marilyn: The Last Monthsthe housekeeper says that the actress's half-sister, Berniece Baker Miraclehe wanted to dress her up with a blue dress for his funeral, claiming it was “his favorite color.” Eunice Murray, on the other hand, saw her wearing shades of green with great pleasure in the months preceding her death.

At rest and in Pucci

When the time came to choose a dress for the deceased, going through her wardrobe, the housekeeper suggested a dress that had caused a sensation at a press conference in Mexico City. She was said to have attracted so many comments from journalists that Marilyn joked: “You should have seen him on a hanger.”

“Now it was on a hanger and its lines were straight up and down, without any shape. Marilyn's silhouette would have defined the curves of her final dress”, adds the author, quoted by the website The Marilyn Collection. Although no image of the coffin has yet been released, the star had already been photographed in this sublime dress in green silk jersey and belt with passementerie detail during his speech at the Continental Hilton Hotel in Mexico City.

The sculptor Paolo Schmidlin based his famous work **At Rest **on these images, covering the actress with a veil. To reproduce her make-up, she took inspiration from her beauty routine Allan Whitney Snyder, Marilyn Monroe's historic make-up artist, who also took care of her funeral make-up. “Promise me that if anything happens to me, please, you won't let anyone else touch my face but you,” the star is said to have asked him a decade before her death. “Promise me you'll do my makeup so I look my best.”

Those who knew Marilyn Monroe say that he collected Pucci dresses in a variety of shades, favoring pastel and colorful tones, very different from his cinematographic wardrobe dominated by black and white. Passionate about the fashion house's garments, she contributed to promoting its wardrobe thanks to her appearances in full Pucci look in front of the cameras, especially in the Sixties. This was a godsend for the house, as Marilyn often opted for monochromatic outfits accessorised with a dress, scarf, bag and matching pumps.

The dress worn at her funeral bears a strong resemblance to a Pucci blouse that was very close to her heart, also anise in colour. She had worn it the weekend before her death, when she had stayed at the Cal-Neva Lodge, in Nevada, where she had been a guest of, among others, Frank Sinatra.