Mainbocher ( 1890-1976) was a native of Chicago, where he studied art at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He served in the Army in the World War I and stayed on in Paris after the war, working as a fashion illustrator for Harper's Bazaar, as Paris fashion editor for Vogue (1922-1929), and eventually became the editor-in-chief of the French edition of Vogue in early 1927. Main Bocher's decision to become a couturier grew out of his years as editor at Vogue; he realized that his critical eye and his feeling for fashion might also serve him as a designer. In November 1929 he established his own fashion house, ‘Mainbocher Couture’ at 12 Avenue George V in Paris.
He designed expensive, elegant haute couture dresses and gowns for an exclusive clientele. He designed much of Wallis Simpson's wardrobe, naming a colour, ‘Wallis Blue’, for her. In 1937, he also designed the wedding dress and trousseau of her marriage to the former Edward VIII (the Duke of Windsor). Described as one the most photographed and most copied dresses of modern times, the bridal dress is today part of the Metropolitan Museum collection.

Mainbocher created impeccably elegant garments. He held decoration to a minimum, favouring refined feminine forms (petal-shaped collar, shirring, small embroideries) If his design seems conservative, as compared to the modern experiments of others in the 1930s, it was because he sought an elegant gentility best seen in this beautifully cut afternoon ensemble featuring an overall genteel floral pattern on fashionable navy.