From the 17th century, Paris led European taste in fashionable dress and furnishings, and the weavers of Lyon provided the silks needed to maintain this position. The International Exhibitions of the 19th century gave manufacturers the opportunity to display their technical skills to the rest of the world, and at the Great Exhibition of 1851 the 31 exhibitors from Lyon confirmed the supreme quality of their silks above those of their competitors in London. This length of dress fabric was purchased by the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria and Albert Museum) at the Paris Exhibition of 1855 for £4. The fashionable silhouette of the 1850s required several metres of fabric to create wide bell-shaped skirts, and this costly material represents the very height of luxury in dress.