Marlene Dietrich in the Famously Daring Dress Designed by Jean Louis for Her Las Vegas Show at the Sahara Hotel in 1953

Always the queen of reinvention, in 1953 Marlene Dietrich accepted a very lucrative offer to appear in her own cabaret act at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. She was a tremendous success and a new career was born; though she would occasionally make films after this, most of her performing energies were thereafter devoted to her concerts.  She continued to tour internationally until, plagued with ill-health and an addiction to alcohol and painkillers, she finally retired from the stage in 1975.

The great visual highlight of her concerts, from the Vegas days forward, was always her first act gown. Over the years there was a wonderful parade of these remarkable “nude” gowns designed by Jean Louis.  Built over a precisely engineered undergarment, and constructed of the thinnest, flesh-colored silk souffle and usually covered in strategically placed beading, they provided both the illusion of a flawless, ageless figure, and an ephemeral but glitteringly sensual glamour.

“More difficult and almost as famous was dress with special undergarment I design for Marlene Dietrich to wear in her 1953 Las Vegas act,” said designer Jean Louis. “Now Marlene was in her late 40s, but when she walk on the stage there is a riot. Marlene was living in New York, and she fly to Hollywood every weekend to fit. ‘Put this bead lower,’ she says. ‘Put this bead higher.’ So we mark it with a tiny pin. Next week she says, ‘Oh, it’s too high, drop it a bit.’ And so on, for six months. I say, ‘We’re not going to have any dress, we’re going to have a hole.’ It was her first appearance in Vegas and she wanted it to be perfect. But when we are finished, ah! Her body look like she is 16 years old. Dress was made of soufflé, a thin chiffon you can see through. The undergarment—the secret to the dress—was of the same material, and it was designed to reveal the bust and with darts, to push the bust up. There was a zip down her back and a band between her legs. Skintight. The neck band was so snug that her skin folded over, so she covered the fold with a diamond necklace.”

“After she opened in Las Vegas the press says in big headlines: MARLENE DIETRICH IN A SEE-THROUGH DRESS. They did not know there was anything underneath because you can see her breasts and her legs. Oh, she knew what she was doing!”