The iconic white �subway dress� seen billowing under Marilyn Monroe as she stood on a subway vent in the 1955 movie �The Seven Year Itch� �has sold at a Profiles in History auction in Los Angeles last Saturday for $4.6 million (or $5,520,000, with added fees) shattering pre-auction estimates of between one and two million dollars.

Signed by the American designer William Travilla, the pleated ivory dress was part of Marilyn Monroe’s most breathtaking movie moment, solidifying Monroe’s enduring image as one of the most celebrated 20th Century sex symbol. The sexy white halterneck outfit has been voted the most iconic movie dress of all time. The image of Monroe in the white dress standing above a subway grating blowing her skirt has been described as one of the iconic images of the entire 20th century.

The entire auction, part of a collection of Hollywood memorabilia held by actress Debbie Reynolds, was valued at $22.8 million with some 700 pieces going under the hammer, according to Nancy Seltzer, a spokeswoman for auction house Profiles in History.

The breezy white halter �subway�dress was the highest value feature of the auction and the star of Reynolds� collection. Some of the other pieces are just as famously known, including Judy Garland’s costume from The Wizard of Oz, the dresses Monroe wore in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and �The River of No Return�, Audrey Hepburn’s Ascot dress from My Fair Lady, costumes from classic Hollywood staples “Gone With the Wind,” “The Sound of Music,” “Cleopatra,” and “Ben-Hur,” and Barbara Streisand’s gold sleeveless gown from Hello, Dolly � which is thought to be the most expensive dress ever made for a film.

The $4.6 Million Dollar Dress

79-year-old Reynolds, a singer, dancer and actress whose greatest role came in “Singin’ in the Rain,” began collecting Hollywood memorabilia in the 1970s when MGM Studios liquidated its assets. Her immense collection includes over 3,500 costumes, 20,000 photographs and hundreds of props and other film artifacts.

Reynolds has expressed her sadness over the need to break up her collection, as multiple attempts to showcase it in its entirety have fallen through.

“To keep them stored another 50 years didn’t make sense,” Reynolds told Reuters. “I hope in the end they all find happy homes, that they will be shown, and that they might even land in museums.”

After the death of Marilyn Monroe in 1962, Travilla kept the dress locked up with many of the costumes he had made over the years for the actress to the point that for years there was talk of a “Lost Collection”.

Only after his own death in 1990, were the clothes put on display by Bill Sarris, a colleague of Travilla. It joined the private collection of Hollywood memorabilia owned by Debbie Reynolds at the Hollywood Motion Picture Museum.

Marilyn Monroe...one of the most celebrated bombshells of the 20th Century