Costume worn by Peter Sellers as Inspector Jacques Clouseau in the film <i>The Pink Panther,</i>1963.

Peter Sellars’ Inspector Clouseau is one of the great comic characters of cinema. Though the character’s signature raincoat is attributed to costume designer Margaret Furse, in fact it was Monty Berman, Director of Bermans the theatrical costumers, who provided his own raincoat (from Aquascutum) for the character. Sellars wore the raincoat for the three sequels The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1975) and Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978).

The British Film Institute (BFI) acquired its costume collection for display at the Museum of the Moving Image, which existed on the South Bank in London between 1988 and 1999. The collection is made up of British, European, American and Japanese films and covers the period from the silent film era to the mid-1990s. It contains a wealth of historic and significant film costumes worn by major performers and designed by some of the 20th century’s most important film costume designers. The collection was transferred to the V&A in 2015.