When Anna Gould acquired a couture gown from French fashion house Agnès in the late 1920s, the future owner of Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, New York, was in her 50s. At the time, a middle-aged woman might have been scoffed at in the United States for wearing this sleeveless pink flapper dress, says Krystyn Hastings-Silver, Lyndhurst’s assistant director and collections manager. But in France, where Gould spent most of her adult life after marrying into the French aristocracy, things were different. “Women [there] were allowed to age like fine wine,” says Hastings-Silver.

The billowy silk chiffon garment first came into the National Trust’s possession when Gould, the youngest daughter of railroad tycoon (and Lyndhurst’s third owner) Jay Gould, bequeathed the estate to the organization following her death in 1961. After the National Trust opened Lyndhurst as a museum and historic site in 1965, many objects were sold off, including the Agnès dress. The site bought the gown back at auction in 2018. Swarovski crystals adorning the bodice form an eye-catching bird-of-paradise motif, but also strain the seams of the delicate chiffon at the shoulders, which a conservator repaired earlier this year.

The freshly reinforced gown is displayed in Lyndhurst’s current exhibition, Influencers: 1920s Fashion and The New Woman, slated to run through September 23, 2024.