14 DAY TRIAL // When Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy dressed Kim Kardashian in that floral dress with matching long gloves and matching shoes at the MET Gala, prompting comparisons between the biggest reality stars of our times and grandma’s couch, everybody assumed he secretly hated her. He didn’t. He doesn’t.
In fact, Tisci, who also happens to be a very close friend of fiancé rapper Kanye West, thinks that Kim is the closest thing we have today to late screen icon Marilyn Monroe. Sure, she might not be such a good actress and she’s definitely not even a decent singer no matter how much money she pours into production, but she’s just as iconic as Marilyn.
In saying these things, Tisci is actually echoing a statement Kanye made some time ago, when he went on one of his trademark rants and took on Vanity Fair for saying Sports Illustrated model Kate Upton was the Marilyn Monroe of our times.
He obviously disagreed, because he had the current Marilyn in his own home: Kim Kardashian, reality star, businesswoman, occasional actress, singer and model, and the mother of his child, a baby girl they named North West, aka Nori.
Tisci swears that, save for the talent, Kim and Marilyn are like two peas in a pod. He also seems to be going out of his way to dispel the idea that she’s anything like what we see on the E!-produced reality show.
“I met her as the girlfriend of a good friend. I just wanted a moment with her to understand – and I fell in love. She’s the Monroe of our age. People think she’s like a doll, but actually she’s tough and clever,” Tisci tells the Sunday Times.
“It’s not so much the beauty of people, but the talent, the roots and the intelligence that concern me. I love people who are not scared to fight for their own rights and have their own point of view. The world is big: the music world is big, the art world is big and the fashion world is big, but I think you can recognize a tribe in the similarity of people,” he continues.
Saying Kim Kardashian is iconic is not that much of a stretch, regardless if you hate, love or love to hate her. She is the kind of celebrity who can make headlines with a single tweet on the most insignificant of topics, and she influences trends and lives more than we’d probably like to admit. Not many celebrities have the kind of star power she boasts.
Still, comparing her to Marilyn is too much, fans of the blonde icon believe. Kim should be just Kim, not the Marilyn or any other big name, dead or alive, of our times.