Jasmine Chiswell, Marilyn Monroe's Lookalike!

Jasmine Chiswell is a popular social media star, best known for her TikTok account jasminechiswell where she posts videos dressed as a Marilyn Monroe lookalike. She has accumulated over 1.2 million followers on her account.

The woman who lives in Marilyn Monroe 's house in 2020 has perfectly styled platinum blonde hair, a penchant for red lipstick, and a wardrobe consisting exclusively of 1950s dresses. But she's no Marilyn Monroe; she's Jasmine Chiswell , a content creator who has 3.4 million followers on TikTok and who posts videos about the fashion history and tales of the house (which she says is haunted by the presence of Monroe). It's a ' 50s aesthetic in a language that's entirely 2020. Have you ever seen a Hitchcock blonde do a TikTok dance? Now yes. This dissonance makes his page dizzying to look at and difficult to ignore.

Chiswell's most popular videos center around fashion , and many of them are in formats familiar to influencers. She's taken a tour of her beauty salon and closet, and only does TikTok fashion trends with vintage clothing . She also posts tips for making your legs look longer in photos, perfectly composed selfies that are filtered into a dreamy mid-century glow. If that wasn't enough to grab your attention, there's Marilyn's house that she and her husband discovered after walking past another of Monroe's old houses that was being demolished. They then researched the actress's other properties, saw one was for sale and purchased it with the intention of preserving it. A video she posted on TikTok titled "Random Things I've Found Living in Marilyn Monroe's House" has been viewed nearly 15 million times. She found magazines from 1953 (when Monroe and Joe DiMaggio reportedly lived there) and the actress' signature hidden in a rafter. The level of commitment is so high and so precise!

The wind is blowing, her hair is almost white, and she is wearing a sleeveless, tight, swaying white dress and Bobbi Brown's Parisian Red lipstick ("I also put Charlotte Tilbury's Marilyn right on the sides ", she says). Her hair is styled in a halo and softly curled. As the wind blows, it adds to the cinematic effect but creates furious background noise on Zoom. Right behind her is a gray millennial-mid-century-modern sofa. Chiswell speaks with a soft, high-pitched Scottish accent and has impeccable posture. She has been dressing in period and reproduction clothing (clothing recently made from period designs) for almost three years. Her husband, Maverick McNeilly , does the same. He is a music producer, and she is a full-time content creator, with an Instagram and YouTube channel in addition to TikTok. They live in a Spanish-style house in Burbank , California, where Monroe lived with DiMaggio. Chiswell believes it was built around 1939 and is haunted by a rather friendly ghost, possibly Monroe's. "Since I've been in this house, my hair has improved a lot. I know it's really weird," Chiswell says.

Chiswell did not always dress this way . She grew up between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and loved watching old films with her grandmother. She liked the way Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Grace Kelly and Diana Dors dressed, especially in their casual clothes. “But I didn’t have the confidence to dress that way,” she says. "I had a bit of a grunge style. I got rid of my Doc Martens when I started dressing that way, but I always liked heels." Jeans were a particular insecurity; they never fit her thighs or waist well. When she was in Burbank, she came across Bésame, a vintage makeup store where she purchased lipstick and face powder. Then it clicked. She started collecting antique dresses and reproductions of antique dresses (they live in separate closets, because antique dresses are a little more delicate). McNeilly began dressing in period clothing about six months later. He dresses like a greaser, in camp shirts and high-waisted pants that wouldn't attract too much attention from Brooklyn guys. “It’s the 1958-1962 fashion that I like the most,” he says.

Both Chiswell and McNeilly talk about not shopping, but collecting . To be a vintage buyer, you have to have a wise mind. The two scour Etsy, Ebay, auctions, auction houses, thrift stores and vintage stores together. “I have almost 100 pieces of vintage clothing and 50 reproductions,” Chiswell says. "That's not true. You have at least 220 vintage dresses and just as many regular reproductions," McNeilly says, and Chiswell laughs. Men's clothing is harder to find ("Many men wore their clothes until they were practically worn out," Chiswell says). Chiswell collects hip-swinging dresses. Her favorite is by Ceil Chapman , a 1950s designer who made dresses for Monroe. She collects belts, especially those made of pure copper, and has purchased several at auction that belonged to Loretta Young , an actress from the 1940s and 1950s. They are delicately packaged and, from what I can tell, they are rarely, if ever, worn. “We were afraid to unwrap them,” Chiswell says, reverently unwrapping a cream-colored belt. “When they were being packaged [at the auction house], someone broke one of the buckles.” On her TikTok, she describes the intricacies of the fashion treasures she's found, from a purse from the 1880s to a set of never-opened false eyelashes from the 1950s.

The couple is equally picky when it comes to their retro beauty and grooming regimes. McNeilly does his hair Danny Zuko style, with real grease . “I use dish soap to get grease out of my hair,” he says. "It's probably the worst thing you can do to your hair. But it's so much better." Chiswell puts her hair in pin curls every night. “I looked at a lot of tutorials on YouTube, and I found these old hair styling books from the 1950s that had different styling designs,” she says. They are cut into a horseshoe shape by a hairstylist who worked with her to find the perfect vintage hairstyle. She usually gets her hair touched up every two weeks , but has been dyeing at home since the pandemic started. “The first time was terrible, as expected, but I think I'm starting to get used to it now,” she says.

Because of her unique look and the millions of people who follow her on social media, Chiswell can never be truly incognito, even while locked away. People approached her in the street, to make fun of her, compliment her or sometimes offer her their own vintage clothes. This is what Chiswell says: "Because my husband dresses that way too, people stare at us and follow us around corners, just to stare and look at us. Some people have come up and laughed in our faces . I remember it was my birthday last year and it took me back a little bit, but I thought, "It's okay, I don't let this kind of thing get to me. Ultimately, I feel like this style makes me happy and makes me who I am. Most of the reactions are really positive and people come to see me. Old people come up to me and say, “Oh, I used to wear my hair like that.”