The Australian actor, satirist, author and comedian Barry Humphries, born in 1934 in Australia as John Barry Humphries, has become a much-loved and celebrated figure on stage and television in Great Britain as his alter-ego character Dame Edna Everage whom he originally created in the 1960s as a drab housewife from the Melbourne suburb Moonee Ponds. As Edna metamorphosed from a dowdy woman with hat and handbag to a glamorously spectacled gladioli-obsessed 'gigastar', 'squillionairess' and Dame, Humphries ensured that his outfits were as eye-catching and flamboyant as his creation. He regularly worked with the designer Stephen Adnitt to create his witty and ingenious costumes, after they met at London Television in the late 1980s when Adnitt was working on the programme The Dame Edna Experience.

With its design based on a gingham tablecloth and plate of cooked breakfast complete with cutlery, the Breakfast Dress is an excellent example of a witty costume thoughtfully created to relate meaningfully to his audience - in this case the staff at the baked beans' factory that Edna was visiting for one episode of the BBC television programme Dame Edna's Work Experience, produced in 1996 by DLT Entertainment UK.