Evening Dress with Jacket, Worn by Elizabeth Parke Firestone, 1953

Elizabeth Parke Firestone, wife of tire magnate Harvey S. Firestone, Jr., cultivated a refined sense of fashion through years of interest in clothing design and collaboration with world-renowned couturiers. Mainbocher was one of Mrs. Firestone's favorite designers, according to her daughter. Firestone patronized this American-born fashion maker when he worked in Paris in the 1930s, and later after he moved to New York.