William Doyle acquired five Sybil Connolly dresses for his Museum of Style Icons at the Newbridge Silverware Visitor Centre in Co Kildare. Doyle bought the dresses at a Christies sale in London before Christmas. Two of the items, a black velvet and pleated linen dress and a pewter linen evening dress, both from the 1950s, were from the Anne Bullitt collection. Another full-length gown, buttoned neck to hem, in taupe linen with a starched collar, was from an unknown provenance.

The museum already has a pleated wool skirt that Connolly designed for Jackie Kennedy, and some of the newly-acquired items such as this evening gown with shell pink bows look as fresh and glamorous today as they did more than half a century ago. See them at the Museum of Style Icons at the Newbridge Silverware Visitor Centre, along with costumes from Michael Jackson’s last performance, which were bought on another Doyle shopping trip.