This evening dress is made from light pink silk velvet with a large band of embroidery featuring metal threads at the hemline. It comes with a detachable belt, also of pink silk velvet. The straight cut and knee-length hemline are typical of the silhouette in fashion in places including France and Britain in the 1920s. Beading was also very popular during this era.

The dress does not contain a label but is extremely similar to other extant dresses known to have come from Babani in France. This Parisian shop was established in 1894 by Vitaldi Babani, who was born in 1858 into an Istanbul Jewish family. Initially the shop focused on imported goods, including Japanese kimono and North African djellabas, but it also came to sell original designs inspired by both imported pieces and the Mariano Fortuny merchandise that Babani had a coveted licence to sell. The Fortuny design house—founded by the multi-talented Spanish designer Mariano Fortuny (Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, Marià Fortuny i de Madrazo, 1871-1949) and based in Venice, Italy—was active from 1907 and particularly successful in its early decades. Fortuny made textiles for clothing and furnishing as well as womenswear. One of their textiles, a late 19th-century curtain in the Cooper Hewitt collection (https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18497717/), features motifs very similar to those found on this Babani dress. The pleated velvet of the dress echoes Fortuny’s association with velvet and use of pleating achieved using a technique now attributed to the French designer and inventor Henriette Nigrin (1877–1965) who Fortuny met in 1902.

The dress is thought to have been worn by Rosemary Crane (1900–1983) who in 1924 travelled from her home in Massachusetts in the United States to England for her presentation at court. It was probably purchased in France around this time. The Crane family derived their wealth from cotton-based paper, used primarily for currency. Crane & Co was established in 1801. Early on the company worked with local and regional banks. In 1879 Crane & Co won its first contract to produce currency for the United States government. The dress was donated to the V&A along with a Fortuny style dress (T.42-2022) commissioned by Rosemary Crane’s mother, Rose Paddock Crane (born 1869), for the trip to England.