A British Museum Is Searching for a Rare 1940s Housecoat From a Fashion Brand That Dressed the Queen—and, on Special Occasions, Ordinary Women Too

Patterned with a map of the British Isles, the housecoat was an early design by the pioneering brand Horrockses, which turned cotton cloth into whimsical women’s wear after World War II

Brigit Katz | Correspondent

August 7, 2026 4:10 p.m.

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During the 1940s and ’50s, stylish ladies across Britain dazzled in the playfully patterned, brightly colored dresses of Horrockses Fashions, a popular clothing brand based in the city of Preston in northern England. Horrockses counted Queen Elizabeth II among its notable fans, but its prices were also within reach of ordinary women searching for a beautiful, high-quality frock. On September 19, The Harris museum in Preston will launch an expansive exhibition celebrating Horrockses’ contributions to ready-to-wear fashion during Britain’s post-war period.

But first, as Paul Burnell of BBC News reports, the museum is hoping to track down one of Horrockses’ unique designs: a housecoat patterned with a map of the British Isles.

The housecoat was included in Horrockses’ first collection, which made its debut in a fashion show on April 3, 1946. Today, only two examples of the garment are known to experts: a burgundy version held by the Imperial War Museum in London, and a blue version that is thought to be held privately. Horrockses’ also made a dress in the same pattern. The Harris Museum hopes to include the map-print fabric in its upcoming exhibition, “Everyday Glamour: Horrockses Fashions from Royalty to Ready to Wear,” which will showcase some 60 dresses by the pioneering brand.

“The Harris is keen to hear from anyone who may own or know the whereabouts of one [of the dresses], as well as anyone with information about the housecoat,” the museum said in a statement. Scott Schiavone, decorative art curator at The Harris, called the housecoat “one of the most exciting and elusive garments from Horrockses’ history.”

Horrockses was born of Britain’s once-booming cotton industry, which produced half of the world’s cotton cloth by the mid-19th century. Founded in Preston in 1791, Horrockses initially manufactured cotton, one of many companies to do so in Lancashire. The industry began to decline, however, during World War I, which inhibited Britain’s ability to export cotton products to foreign markets. Seeking new sources of revenue, Horrockses established its fashion brand in the 1940s, using its own cotton to produce a line of women’s wear that included dresses, housecoats and beachwear.

The venture was a stunning success, melding high-quality production methods with avant-garde designs. Horrockses hired graduates from the Royal College of Art and collaborated with artists like Eduardo Paolozzi and Graham Sutherland to create striking cotton prints. Emma Stanley of BBC News reports that the company also sent its designers to Paris, where they took inspiration from high-end brands like Dior. Customers particularly admired the brand’s full-skirted dresses, which often featured bold floral and geometric patterns, and the quality of its cotton, which washed well, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Queen Elizabeth II was granted first pick of the two collections that Horrockses produced each year. According to The Harris museum, the queen liked the brand’s dresses so much that she took several with her when she embarked on her Commonwealth tour in 1953. But Horrockses’ dresses were not the exclusive purview of royalty or the upper crust. They were sold at department stores and, according to the Guardian’s Kate Carter, cost between £4 and £7—expensive, but still accessible to working women who wanted to save up for one.

“A Horrockses dress meant something,” per The Harris museum. “People bought them for weddings, for honeymoons, for the occasions that called for your very best.”

With its call to the public in search of Horrockses’ map-print housecoat, the museum hopes to find and celebrate a rare design by a brand that came to be loved by so many women.

“It was there right at the very beginning, at the first fashion show back in 1946 and yet we know of only a handful of surviving examples,” Schiavone, the curator, says in the museum statement. “We’d love to hear from anyone who owns one of these garments, or who knows where one might be, so that we can explore bringing it to Preston to be seen alongside the rest of the collection this autumn.”

Brigit Katz is a freelance writer based in Toronto. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including NYmag.com, Flavorwire and Tina Brown Media's Women in the World.