Kim Kardashian accused of damaging 60-year-old historic Marilyn Monroe dress

Reality star Kim Kardashian is facing lashes after photos showing alleged damage to the iconic Marilyn Monroe skin-tight dress released on the internet.

Kim wore the 60-year-old dress at the Met Gala on 2 May.

The dress which now costs around $5 million was first worn by Marilyn Monroe 60 years ago in 1963, when she sang "Happy Birthday" to President John F Kennedy, Jr, thus marking the outfit's significance in history.

Kim sealed a deal with Ripley's Believe It or Not to wear the gold "Happy Birthday" dress at the Met Gala, reports American entertainment outlet Variety.

Kim accessorised the gown with a fur shawl to hide the fact that she could not zip the dress at the back.

Now, a Marilyn Monroe collector is criticising Kardashian and Ripley's authority, sharing before and after pictures of the dress which show stretches in the fabric and missing crystals.

"Without question, the damage is significant," the Scott Fortner Marilyn Monroe Collection penned on its Instagram handle on Monday.

The recent photos and videos of the dress was shot by creative director Chad Michael Christian Morrisette.

"This dress is a piece of my life and my heart. To see what @kimkardashian did in the damaging of it is heartbreaking," Morrisette wrote on social media.

The Marilyn Monroe Collection also included quotes from Amanda Joiner, vice president of licensing and publishing at Ripley Entertainment in their post about the alleged damage of the dress.

"The dress was never with Kim alone. It was always with a Ripley's representative. We always ensured that at any time we felt that the dress was in danger of ripping or we felt uncomfortable about anything, we always had the ability to be able to say we not were going to continue with this," Amanda Joiner said in a statement to the Daily Beast.

Kim thought that the dress would fit her. However, she had to lose 16 pounds in three weeks to slip into that dress. After walking the Met Gala Red Carpet, Kim changed into a replica version of the dress.

The dress was originally sketched by Bob Mackie and created by Jean Louis specially for Marilyn Monroe.

Bob Mackie protested as he saw Kim wearing that dress in early May. He told Entertainment Weekly that Kardashian made "a big mistake" by wearing that dress

"[Marilyn] was a goddess," Mackie continued. "A crazy goddess, but a goddess. She was just fabulous. Nobody photographs like that. And it was done for her. It was designed for her. Nobody else should be seen in that dress."