This week in the series of iconic dresses we feature perhaps the most famous white dress to have ever appeared on a screen: the blow-away ivory cocktail dress that Marilyn Monroe wore in The Seven Year Itch.

In the 1955 film directed by Billy Wilder, the dress that flies up as Marilyn stands on a subway grate, just having emerged from a movie hall showing The Creature from the Black Lagoon, was designed by the Oscar-winning William Travilla.

He had been dressing Marilyn up for some time, including in Gentleman Prefer Blondes.

Designed in the style of the 1950s and 1960s, the dress comes with a halter-like bodice and has a plunging neckline. The soft pleated fabric and the broad belt around the waist highlights the contours of Marilyn’s body.

The dress had far-reaching consequences, including, reportedly, on Marilyn’s marriage.

At the time of the shooting of the film, Marilyn was married to Joe DiMaggio, the baseball player, who was among the huge crowd of photographers and admirers who watched as Marilyn stood on the grate after midnight on the corner of New York’s Lexington Ave and 52nd Street. The scene required 14 takes — but finally was reshot in a set because the noise of the crowd cheering could not be eliminated – and the crowd roared every time the breeze blew. DiMaggio stormed off in anger. He and Marilyn would get divorced soon.

The dress would prompt so much more, including several tributes on screen and off it. In 2011, Seward Johnson designed Forever Marilyn, a 26-foot statue of wearing this dress. The statue has been displayed in various places in the US and in Australia.

The dress sold at an auction in 2011 for $5.6million.