Monroe’s ‘Happy Birthday, Mr President’ dress for sale

The flesh-coloured dress Marilyn Monroe wore during her breathless rendition of Happy Birthday to President John F Kennedy is going on the auction block this autumn.

Julien’s Auctions is offering the sequined garment on 17 November in Los Angeles. The auction house believes it could fetch as much as $3m (£2.2m).

Monroe wore the barely-there dress at Kennedy’s birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden in 1962. It was so form-fitting she had to be sewn into it.

She died less than three months later of an overdose of sleeping pills. Kennedy died the following year.

The dress was last sold in 1999 for $1.26m.

Prior to the sale, the dress will be showcased at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, New Jersey, and the Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge, Ireland.