Mary Pickford's famous black dress from My Best Girl (1927), almost unrecognizable without its distinctive white cutwork-embroidered collar and cuffs.
The history of this dress remains something of a mystery. I can't offer much beyond some observations and hypotheses.
For starters, there appear to be at least two surviving examples. One is the dress in this collection, acquired by Debbie Reynolds at the 1981 Mary Pickford Estate auction, then sold in November 2003 by JulienEntertainment.com via Heritage Auctions from the collection of the Debbie Reynolds Hollywood Motion Picture Museum. The other is held by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), having been bequeathed directly by Mary Pickford and received by the museum in the early 1980s.
I somewhat feel that the LACMA dress is not a screen-used garment unless it was substantially altered afterward. First, it has different buttons, and those buttons are purely decorative; the dress actually fastens with snaps. In the film, however, functioning buttonholes are clearly visible. Second, the LACMA dress lacks the pocket seen on screen. Both the working buttonholes and the pocket are however present on the dress in this collection. With that said, the LACMA dress retains the original collar and cuffs seen in the film, which is where the mystery begins. Were the collar and cuffs removed from this collection's dress and transferred to the LACMA dress at some point? If so, why? Interestingly, they appear to have been basted on to the LACMA dress rather than permanently stitched. Why?
Closer examination of the film reveals another intriguing detail. Careful viewers may notice that not one, but two slightly different collars appear on screen -- sometimes in the same scene. Although both feature the same cutwork embroidery, using the seams as a point of reference, the pattern aligns differently indicating that they were cut and sewn from different sections of the fabric. Why was there a second collar? Sure, it indeed points to another dress altogether, but it simply could have been a second collar attached to a single dress. Ultimately, multiple costumes would not have been unusual, and in this case, particularly because the dress is so delicate and given the scenes in which Mary is drenched in rain. At present, there is no definitive answer, but considering two dresses currently exist, maybe there were indeed two dresses used in the film (even if LACMA's has those noted differences, again, it could have been modified later.)
To make one feel at least a little better, I should note that I do not believe the collar and cuffs were lost from this dress due to negligence. Rather, I suspect they were intentionally removed—whether by the production, Mary Pickford herself, or someone else—for a reason that remains unknown. The fact the parts are sewn onto to LACMA's dress, would logically imply they were sewn to this dress, and as such could not have simply fallen off and gone missing. As previously noted, maybe they were removed from this one and added to LACMA's. Having said that, what then became of the second collar seen in the film? Another question that I cannot answer.
Lastly, there has been speculation that the dress was designed by Chanel. That seems highly unlikely given the construction of both surviving garments, which lack the quality and techniques one would expect of couture and instead appear to have been assembled more like Hollywood costumes. I believe this claim stems from a misinterpretation of a caption in the 1976 book Hollywood Costume: Glamour, Glitter, Romance. On page 63, the caption reads: "The twenties saw the emergence of the working girl and her basic black dress—a fashion idea seized upon by Mary Pickford for her role in My Best Girl, 1927, and by Chanel, who was fascinated by the wardrobe of the grisette." This does not state that Chanel designed the dress. In fact, directly above the caption appears the description: "Mary Pickford costume for My Best Girl, 1927, designer unknown." (The photograph shown seems to be the dress now at LACMA.) Furthermore, Chanel's own history notes that it was not until 1931, at the request of Samuel Goldwyn, that Gabrielle Chanel arrived in Hollywood to design costumes for two films.
In conclusion, there are more questions than answers, but at least here is this collection's dress from My Best Girl, sans collar and cuffs.
My sincere thanks to Jennifer Iacovelli (LACMA) and Beth Werling (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) for their assistance in researching this dress.
