Her weight fluctuated. In her “prime”, one of the most reliable of her biographers, Anthony Summers, quotes costume designer Billy Travilla’s notes that have her measuring 36 C-26-36 at 5′5 and 120 pounds. She worked out quite a bit, too, and had great muscle tone. She also, like pretty much every other female movie star or model of the time, wore a girdle and that cinched her waist in. She looked amazing, obviously, and would probably take a size 4- 6 in today’s sizes. Not that different from the average Sports Illustated model.
However, during the filming of The Misfits, she was 140 pounds. Plus size, no. But by no means svelte, as you can see by the photographs I attach. Probably size 10 in today’s sizes.
She was, at the end of her life, the slimmest she had ever been (less than 118 pounds, and in the costume tests for “Something’s Got to Give”, looking more Audrey Hepburn than MM figure wise imo) and even commented that she “looked better than ever.” It is at this time she wore that flesh-coloured dress that Kim Kardashian famously had to diet to fit into.
Her waist measurement is almost always listed as 24 inches. Sometimes even 23. That is extremely small. I am a size 0 and my waist is usually 23 inches. She was also TALL. She was 5′5 I am 5′3. I think it’s honestly shocking (and ridiculous) that Marilyn is ever even brought up in the plus size discussion at all. It would probably offend her.
I am technically bigger than Marilyn was because my waist is only 1 inch smaller and I am two inches shorter. I weigh 108 pounds. Everyone always tells me how skinny and petite I am. No one would ever consider me plus sized. I’m a size 0–2 in modern clothes. Some of what allowed her waist to be so unusually small is probably just her bone structure. I have broad shoulders, Marilyn did not.
Kim Kardashian doesn’t consistently get LABELED as plus sized, and she not only looked fat and ridiculous in Marilyn’s dress as she was bursting the seams but she actually permanently damaged it (because she was SO fat.) If Kim Kardashian the dress ripper isn’t plus sized, you can absolutely forget Marilyn. Please stop asking this absolutely absurd question. It’s like asking if Santa Clause is actually a woman.
There was no such thing as a size 0 in the 1950’s. Marilyn wore a 1950’s size 16, but that’s because at the time a size 16 was SMALL like a 16 year old. She did not wear a massive modern day size 16. TWIGGY was a size 8 in the 1960’s. Today Twiggy would be a 00
