Costume consisting of 'grass skirt', red blouse with large white spots and 'grass head dress' designed by Alexandra Exter for the ballet Jazz by Bronislava Nijinska and worn by Nijinska.
Jazz was a character duet performed by Bronislava Nijinska and Serge Lapitzsky set to Igor Stravinsky’s Ragtime and first performed by the Theatre Chorégraphique Nijinska on 7 August 1925 as The Savage Jazz at the Winter Gardens, Bournemouth. The production was an affectionate look at black dance inspired by the developing fashion in the 1920s for jazz and black American art and culture personified by performances by Josephine Baker. Although brown body-stockings were made for the dancers they preferred to use liquid make up to darken their faces and bodies. The duet was short-lived and only danced a few times. An illustration by Alexandra Exter of the dancers in the ballet is also in the V&A S.11-2016.

Although Stravinsky did not intend his Ragtime to be used for dance it had already been choreographed by Léonide Massine in London in 1922 (for himself with Lydia Lopokova) and George Balanchine had created the first of his three ballets to the score the same year in Russia. In May 1925 Stravinsky had conducted Ragtime in a concert at the Paris Opera and it is possible Nijinska first heard it there.