The Devonshire House ball was the highlight of the London season of 1897, which focused on celebrations for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The ball was remarkably well publicised and documented as many of the royal and aristocratic guests were photographed in their lavish costumes for a privately published album. The event has come to represent the pinnacle of the extravagant aristocratic pastime of fancy dress balls and it exhibited the extraordinary confidence of the aristocracy and the British Empire at the time, providing a contrast with decline and social changes of the 20th century, symbolised by the demolition of Devonshire House in 1924.
The costumes required for fashionable fancy dress balls in the 19th century were a significant source of business for women’s couturiers and dressmakers. They rarely survive in good condition, as they were naturally re-used and adapted. Many women who went to the ball, like Lady Stanley, bought costumes made for them by the famous couture house of Worth. This style, a hunting costume, was also worn by Lady Alexandra Acheson. Lady Stanley's surviving costume is labelled and numbered, and bears many of the Worth trademark construction techniques, but is unfinished in parts that are not visible, as befitted a quickly made garment.
The costumes have remained in the same family since they were made. Lady Stanley married the Hon. Francis Gathorne-Hardy in 1898. He had a long and highly decorated military career, serving in the Boer War and the First World War. When he left the army his full title was General Sir John Francis Gathorne-Hardy GCB, GCVO, CMG, DSO. Lady Isobel Stanley was the daughter of the Earl of Derby, Lord Stanley of Preston, who was Governor-General of Canada. She was one of the first female ice hockey players and helped to establish Canada’s Stanley Cup.