It took a fever dream of ambition and a studio executive’s cunning to transform the orphan Norma Jeane Mortenson into Marilyn Monroe. As Marilyn, she would become the ultimate bombshell, one who dazzled onscreen and whose image would be seared into the public imagination, seemingly forever. With her platinum blonde curls and heavy-lidded eyes, she worked her way into art and, posthumously, onto many a runway. Now, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the actor’s birth, we look at how designers have borrowed some of her stardust.

An AI search revealed that, to a bloodless machine, Monroe’s face and hair are her most defining characteristics. It’s that unmistakable visage—as interpreted by Andy Warhol both as a silkscreened artwork and reinterpreted in his own photographic portrait as Marilyn—that has been adapted by designers again and again. Most famously by Gianni Versace in 1990 and later reissued by Donatella Versace in 2017 for a new generation. For a menswear collection built around “creative provocateurs,” it was Dries Van Noten, of all people, who used blown-up photo prints of Monroe pasted across T-shirts, button-ups, and jackets. Many others (including Jean-Charles de Castelbajac) haven’t been able to resist the siren’s call of a portrait dress featuring that instantly recognizable face. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, meanwhile, are among Monroe’s most ardent fashion fans, and, to prove it, have presented at least three collections in which she is referenced. Perhaps their most witty, for spring 1992, the designers referenced a revenge dress made out of a burlap potato sack, which the actor wore in response to a derogatory comment on her style.

Thierry Mugler and Alexander McQueen are among those who have iterated on Monroe’s stage costumes, notably the infamous white flyaway halter dress from The Seven Year Itch and the dressier looks from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The most abstract take on Monroe’s look comes from Jean Paul Gaultier, who in 1984 (pre-Madonna) designed cone bras (a ’50s silhouette that the actor made maximum use of) in cartoonish proportions that were as exaggerated, in their way, as the Monroe myth, which only grows as time passes.

With this collection, according to the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, the designer “paid tribute to the figures he admired, including Marilyn Monroe, Catherine Deneuve, Zizi Jeanmaire, Marcel Proust, Bernard Buffet, and Christian Dior.”

“Tippi Hedren and Marilyn Monroe. Biker molls and sweater girls. You got it: Alexander McQueen went to the ’60s, all the way, for fall. With its filched movie and rock-and-roll themes, the collection read as a knowing vehicle, a McQueen director’s cut,” wrote Sarah Mower of the designer’s fall 2005 show.

For spring 2014, Prabal Gurung’s muse, reported Nicole Phelps, was Marilyn Monroe: “‘It’s a celebration of the elegant woman; she’s becoming an endangered species,’” he said before his show. ‘I wanted to put her in a modern context.’ Gurung’s idealized creature this season comes with a bite. Monroe’s last sitting with Bert Stern was on his mood board. And roses.”

“The Max Mara team landed on a perfect muse for fall: Marilyn Monroe circa the pictures that photographer George Barris took of her on the beach in 1962.”—Nicole Phelps

“Van Noten got to use Marilyn on anything from a double-breasted suit to a pair of boxing shorts and a capacious poncho,” reported Tim Blanks. “Knitwear claimed one of MM’s eyes and her lips, adapting Erwin Blumenfeld’s classic 1950 Vogue cover. A polo shirt featured a photo print of a beautiful, poignant poolside snap.”

“For the first time since assuming creative direction of the company, Donatella Versace pulled directly from archives the key prints and pieces from the years 1991–95, the period that saw some of Gianni Versace’s most iconic collections: Vogue, Warhol, My Friend Elton, Icons, Baroque, Animalia, Native Americans, Tresor de la Mer, Metal Mesh, and Butterflies.” —Sally Singer

“Sexual symbolism and playful perviness have been visibly playing through Christopher Kane’s shows since he invoked the suburban Madam Cynthia Payne in spring 2017. With this one, he’s teased out his obsession with Marilyn Monroe, whose voice he used in a recent catwalk show, saying, ‘Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.’ That’s how he arrived at the Monroe with a kitten print on a pink duchesse satin top—‘because she was known as an animal lover’—and then a flurry of coded references to ’50s clichés, from hand-drawn polka dots and boudoir negligees to ladylike pearls.” —Sarah Mower

“Comme des Garçons Shirt partnered with the Andy Warhol Foundation for its latest collection. This is spring’s big news, and fans of the brand and the artist alike will be doubly satiated with the outcome: Graphic color-blocked oxford shirts with bits and panels of reproduced Warhol works (Marilyn Monroe included) stood strong against white tees depicting the same imagery (plus added text, like Monroe’s quote, ‘Dogs don’t bite me. Just humans’).” —Nick Remsen

“‘I believe in living with authenticity—free from validation and permission of absurd conservatism and societal norms.’ Marc Jacobs said he was after ‘joy, period’ at his show tonight. It lasted all of six minutes—a short, sharp shock—but it made a big, big impression. I saw Marilyn Monroe in her iconic subway grate dress from The Seven Year Itch, Minnie Mouse in her red-and-white polka dots, and princess gowns out of a Disney classic. There were other references for other eyes, but there’s no debate that this was a collection full of main character energy.” —Nicole Phelps

“Their idea for spring was to take us to the movies; they channeled cinema’s most glamorous blondes—Marilyn Monroe, Monica Vitti, Marlene Dietrich—with platinum wigs, pinup dresses, and rigid-cupped bras. Between quiet luxury and bullet bras, it’s no contest.” —Nicole Phelps