Costume worn by Anna Neagle in the film Nell Gwyn, 1934.

Dame Anna Neagle was one of the most popular stage and screen actors of the early 20th century. Neagle appeared in a series of successful historical dramas portraying actress Peg Woffington in Peg of Old Drury (1936), Queen Victoria in Victoria the Great (1937) and the title role in Nurse Edith Cavell (1939). Nell Gwynn was one of her early box office successes, produced by her future husband Herbert Wilcox. The costumes were designed by Doris Zinkeisen, a Scottish stage designer, painter and writer. Zinkeisen began her career designing the costumes for the C.B. Cochran reviews and went on to become one of the most prolific designers of the 20th century. One of her most enduring costume designs was for Laurence Olivier’s career defining Richard III, which he performed on stage in 1944.

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.