In 1955, a young woman walked into Norman Norell's Seventh Avenue atelier. She was already famous — impossibly, uncomfortably famous — but she arrived quietly, without an entourage, and sat down across from the most rigorous tailor in America.
Norell had dressed Babe Paley and Lauren Bacall. He had dressed First Ladies and socialites. He was not easily impressed. But Marilyn Monroe — Norma, as she introduced herself — was something he had not encountered before: a woman whose physical presence demanded a completely new approach to construction. She could not wear what other women wore. She needed something that moved with her. Something that trusted her.
Norell's response was the sequined mermaid gown — his most enduring design signature, and the sequin dress still searched as vintage Hollywood glamour and retro evening wear. Thousands of hand-sewn sequins on a column of jersey that followed every movement of the body beneath it. No structure. No apology. Just a woman, precisely as she was.
For a full account of sequins, sequin dresses, and how Norell built them, see Sequins. That sequin mermaid silhouette became the look Marilyn Monroe wore at the 1962 Golden Globes: an emerald green Norell gown that still defines his name. Months later, for President Kennedy's birthday at Madison Square Garden, Norell made her a black high-necked gown. She sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to JFK in a Jean Louis crystal dress instead. The Norell for that night was never worn. The sequin legend, and the dress she almost wore, still sit at the center of American glamour.
"It has to be skintight. You have to trust the construction completely. There is nowhere to hide — and that is the point."— NORMAN NORELL