15 of pop culture's most iconic white dresses

Girls in white dresses

Happy Memorial Day! The time has come for beach days, barbecues, rooftop parties—and your white wardrobe! We've rounded up 15 of the most iconic white dresses in pop culture history to inspire you this Memorial Day, whether you'll be breaking your lightest duds out of storage or you've been wearing them since Labor Day, old-school style rules be damned. Check out our picks, from the glamorous to the breezy to the, um, swan-like, ahead.

Marilyn Monroe in The Seven-Year Itch

Her then-husband, Joe DiMaggio, may not have been too pleased with it, but Marilyn Monroe made a Hollywood moment for the ages when she stood over the subway grate in Billy Wilder's The Seven-Year Itch. William Travilla, who frequently dressed the screen icon, made the full-skirted halter dress that launched a thousand dorm room posters. This is the white dress to rule them all.

Björk at the 2001 Oscars

In 2001, Björk wore a swan to the Oscars. Iconic.

Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Could there possibly be a more beautiful on-screen pairing than Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? (No, there could not.) As Maggie "The Cat" Pollitt, Taylor is stunning in this white V-necked midi dress, gloriously offset by her dark hair and red lips.

Carrie Fisher in Star Wars

Forget the slave bikini. It was the image of Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia in this white dress and cinnamon roll 'do that first blasted her into the cultural consciousness in 1977, and she's remained an intergalactic fashion icon ever since.

Michelle Obama at the 2009 inaugural ball

Michelle Obama kicked off her time in the White House with a white dress, choosing this dreamy one-shouldered silk chiffon gown for the 2009 inaugural ball. During her tenure as first lady, Obama was known not only for mixing high and lower-end labels (shout-out to J.Crew!), but also for putting the spotlight on up-and-coming American designers. This gown was created by Jason Wu (an Obama favorite), who didn't even know the FLOTUS had chosen his design until he saw her wearing it on TV. The iconic dress is now housed in the First Ladies exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady

She may have also worn white in the final ballroom scene, during which she demonstrates her perfected elocution, but Audrey Hepburn's most indelible fashion moment as Eliza Doolittle has to be the white dress and hat bedecked with black ribbon that she wears to the races. Eliza may slip back into Cockney speech, but she aces the fashion test with flying colors.

The Great Gatsby's Daisy and Jordan

The ladies of The Great Gatsby powdered themselves from head to toe and lounged around in cool white shifts to beat the heat. "Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans," Fitzgerald wrote of the scene. If only they'd stayed on the couch that fateful afternoon!

Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief

Grace Kelly is the coolest of Hitchcock blondes in the director's To Catch a Thief, and never more so than when she's wearing this breathtaking white chiffon column dress by legendary costumer Edith Head.

Related: Costume designer Edith Head's greatest work

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

It's a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills institution: Every year, the "wives break out their bright-white Beverly Hills best for Kyle Richards" annual white party. They also often break out their oldest grudges and meanest barbs, but that's neither here nor there.

Lupita Nyong'o at the 2014 Oscars

A year after she accepted her own Oscar looking like a true Hollywood goddess, Lupita Nyong'o returned to the Academy Awards' red carpet to wow in white. Shockingly, the spectacular custom Calvin Klein gown, dripping with 6,000 pearls, was stolen from Nyong'o's hotel room a few days after the ceremony, then returned a few days later.

Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct

Who said white was innocent? In Paul Verhoeven's erotic thriller Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone demonstrated how to wear the hue to truly scandalous effect—just skip underwear.

Jennifer Lawrence at the 2013 Oscars

Jennifer Lawrence won her first Oscar (on her second nomination), for Silver Linings Playbook, in this gorgeous white strapless gown by—who else?—Dior. The dress is so stunning, it almost makes us forget that she tripped on the stairs out as she walked onstage—almost.

Natalie Wood in West Side Story

"White is for babies!" Natalie Wood's Maria complains when first given this dress, which she wears to the dance at the gym where she first meets her Romeo, Tony, in Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins' West Side Story. But don't worry: Once she puts it on and looks in the mirror, it makes her feel pretty.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles' Tess Durbeyfield

The first appearance of the title character in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is at a May Day celebration, where Tess and all the other girls in the village of Marlott, in Hardy's fictional county of Wessex, wear white. Not pictured: the "pronounced adornment" of a red ribbon/marker of imminent sexual downfall in our heroine's hair.

Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind

Scarlett O'Hara's dress made out of curtains gets a lot of attention, but this ultra-voluminous garment, worn by Vivien Leigh as casual daywear in the very first scene, is a sartorial confection worthy of an ode for every one of its ruffles.