This costume was worn in shows at the Theatre Royal, Leeds, in the 1930s and 1940s, maybe in the flying ballets, which were a feature of several productions. The 'fliers' were attached to wires and swung out over the auditorium, where they dropped flowers onto the audience.
Butterflies were extremely popular in the first decades of the 20th century; as they were aerial creatures with an amazing variety of colour, they were an obvious subject for dancers or for scenes in the spectacular pantomimes that were produced in every major city and town in England. The concept was simple, as in this costume, the leotard was decorated to simulate a segmented insect body, the fitted helmet headdress was topped with 'antennae' and the brightly coloured and sequinned wings were then attached at the centre back and to the wrists or fingers. When these costumes came to the Museum, it was impossible to accurately match 'bodies' and 'wings', so the wings were catalogued separately. In fact, in the hurly-burly that is a theatre wardrobe, performers were probably dressed in any combination of leotard and wings that came to hand.
Whereas a costume worn by a star performer or a particularly stunning design might be preserved, theatre costumes of this style and period, worn by a succession of unknown performers, are comparatively rare. They might go into the theatre stock wardrobe and worn until they fell to pieces, or just thrown out to make room because noone thought they were of any interest. A few, like this costume, were saved by people who worked in the theatre or their friends.