Mary Pinchot of New York, collected historic, exotic, and interesting textiles and costumes during her travels. Before her death in 1919, she loaned a large collection of these items to the Smithsonian. In 1920, her heirs converted the loan to a gift and added clothing from her personal wardrobe, including a number of Worth garments, to the donation. Little is known about her life and family except that her daughter married a nobleman.

Charles Frederick Worth and The House of Worth-Maison Worth, a Paris couture house, was founded by expatriate Englishman Charles Frederick Worth in 1858. Worth was born in 1835, the son of a Lincolnshire solicitor who abandoned his family in 1836. The lad was first apprenticed to a printer, but he didn't like to get ink on his hands. His mother then situated the 12-year-old with a London draper's firm. By the end of his apprenticeship in 1845 at the age of 19, Worth had absorbed a love for fine fabric, a knowledge of art, and a desire to excel as a ladies' dressmaker--a field that was at that time almost exclusively female.