The broadtail dress

Vivien Leigh - black broadtail dress by Exeter Digital Humanities on Sketchfab

A 3D model of Vivien Leigh's black broadtail dress held at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter. The dress was likely made in the 1950s, and was given to the museum by Vivien Leigh's daughter, Suzanne Farrington, who originally offered it to her aunt Dorothy Holman at Topsham Museum. The dress came to RAMM in the 1970s.

The dress is made from a very rare and expensive fur and would have been a highly fashionable item in the 1950s. Suzanne Farrington explained in a letter about the dress that the long pieces along the neckline would have been held in place with a brooch. This allowed them to form a collar around the neck.