Kim Kardashian and the Marilyn dress

Once again, Kim has everyone exactly where she wants them: gossiping about her.

Image source: Kim Kardashian on Instagram

One can say a lot of things about Kim Kardashian (and her clan) but calling her dumb is not one of them.

A few years back, at the height of the Kardashian craze, I ended up putting my snobbery aside and writing a blog post about the (in)famous sisters, comparing them to the “cocottes” or “grandes horizontales” of the Belle Epoque, like The Belle Otero, La Paiva or Liane Pougy.

Not because I consider the Kardashians to be like high-class courtesans (their s*x life, as far as we know and if we set aside the XXX tape that made Kim famous and a few nude pictures, is surprisingly tame compared to the feats of countless anonymous girls in the Tinder/hook up era) but because cocottes mastered, like the Kardashians do, the art of being famous for being famous.

Belle Epoque parisians courtesans were the talk of the tabloids, led extravagant lives, had an insatiable appetite for diamonds (that is, when they weren’t throwing them in the fireplace just for kicks) and while some of them ended up in poverty after literally burning fortunes, others were business savvy like Kim and were set for life, with the most sophisticated ones even marrying into aristocracy or royalty (those family reunions had to be SO. AWCKWARD. Good golly!).

Well, it’s the closest historical parallel that I could come up with, anyway.

However, love or hate the Kardashians, they made their mark in the world and aren’t going anywhere.

I personally ended up liking Kim quite a bit, by the way; she is smart, even going to law school as if running a billion-dollar business wasn’t enough proof of brains.

Plus, she has a reputation for being very sweet and professional: empires aren’t built out of anything; there has to be some substance behind the glitz and glamour. And a smart girl always gets my respect, especially if she is a master at playing dumb when it suits her.

Finally, she might get naked all she wants, but dresses appropriately for the White House or to Church, pretty veils and all, which is more than you can say of many church-going girls who attend Mass dressed like, guess who…a Kardashian on duty. I have a soft…