Bugnand Blue Wool Suit

Description

Blue wool dress and jacket with fur (fox or raccoon) shawl collar.
Dress has jewel neck, 7/8 length sleeve, self banded neckline and waist, bodice with princess seams and darts; skirt with soft pleats at waist line and pockets set into princess seams; bodice is lined in China Silk and skirt in taffeta; dress sleeves unlined; center back metal zipper; interior back waist band ends in navy lace.
Jacket has mink collar, 2 self covered button closing at center front, front darts and princess seams, 7/8 sleeve length, lined in taffeta.

Source

HCT.1992.711.5ab

Date

1958-1965

Provenance

This suit belonged to Mrs. Harvey S. Firestone Jr. Born Elizabeth Parke in Decatur, Illinois in 1897 she was the daughter of Guy James Parke and Gertrude Chambers Parke. As a girl she attended Leed's School in England and Rosemary Hall in Greenwich, Connecticut, and graduated from Miss Wheeler's School in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1921, Elizabeth married Harvey S. Firestone Jr., the heir to the The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. They lived in Akron, Ohio and Newport, Rhode Island. Each year Mrs. Firestone traveled to Paris to purchase her clothes directly from designers and during the 1950s she was nominated for The Couture Group of the New York Dress Institute Inc.'s Best Dressed Women's list several times. Mrs. Firestone passed away in October, 1990 at the age of 93.