Kim Kardashian’s Monet Purchase Began With a Joke From ‘Clueless’

The billionaire entrepreneur says her first major art acquisition was not driven by a collector’s education or years spent in the art world, but by a line from a 1990s teen comedy that stayed with her for decades

For most collectors, the path to owning a Claude Monet begins with a fascination for Impressionism, a growing engagement with the art market or years of exposure to museums and galleries. For Kim Kardashian, it started with Clueless.

The billionaire entrepreneur and founder of Skims has revealed that the first major artwork she ever purchased for herself was a Monet, a decision rooted not in art history but in one of the most memorable lines from the 1995 cult comedy starring Alicia Silverstone. The story emerges in Citizen Kim, a biography by journalist Jonathan Van Meter, excerpts of which were published by The Hollywood Reporter.

The connection traces back to a remark delivered by Silverstone’s character, Cher Horowitz, who famously describes someone as “a full-on Monet,” explaining that the person looks fine from a distance but becomes “a big old mess” up close. The joke turned the French Impressionist’s name into pop-culture shorthand and, according to Kardashian, remained lodged in her imagination long after she first watched the film as a 14-year-old.

“That’s why I bought my Monet,” Kardashian told Van Meter. Recalling the movie’s running gag, she said characters would call girls “a Monet” when they appeared attractive from afar but were far less impressive at close range.

The purchase itself came years later, during an auction in Rome around 2021. Kardashian was in the Italian capital with Kim Jones, then artistic director of Fendi’s womenswear collections and a collaborator on the Fendi x Skims partnership announced that same year. Among the works offered for sale was a Monet landscape dominated by shades of gray, a palette she felt suited the restrained aesthetic of her Palm Springs home, designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando and known for its minimalist concrete interiors.

What began as a cautious bid soon became a lesson in auction dynamics.

Kardashian said she continued raising her offers despite having little understanding of how the process worked. It was her first auction, she recalled, and each successive bid drew her further into the competition. According to her account, Jones urged her not to back away as the price climbed.

“Get it,” he told her.

She did. The painting ultimately sold for more than she had originally planned to spend, a result Kardashian attributed to the adrenaline of the moment and the intensity of the bidding.

The revelation adds another chapter to a longstanding, if occasional, public record of Kardashian’s interest in art. In a 2020 interview with E!, she identified a work by Lucio Fontana as the most meaningful gift she had ever received. Two years later, visitors who followed Vogue’s widely viewed tour of her home could see another Fontana piece, a white canvas by the Italian artist displayed above a fireplace.

Yet among the artworks associated with Kardashian’s collection, the Monet now carries a distinction of its own. It was not acquired because of a curator’s recommendation, a dealer’s pitch or a scholarly appreciation of Impressionism. By Kardashian’s own telling, one of the most recognizable paintings she owns can be traced instead to a fleeting joke from a teen movie that refused to leave her memory.

(Photo: © AndKronos)