Cecil Beaton called Deborah 'the most beautiful of all' the peeresses in this off-the-shoulder robe, believed to have been reworked from an original worn by Georgiana, wife of the 5th Duke of Devonshire. In her memoirs, Deborah describes how she came to wear it:
"...Moucher [Mary Devonshire] was to have the robes that had been carefully put away by Granny Evie in 1937 after King George VI's coronation. Chatsworth, as always, came to the rescue. There were a number of tin boxes...In the vain hope of finding something for me, we started going through them and, lo and behold, from beneath a ton of tissue paper in the box that had held Moucher's, appeared a second crimson peeress's robe. The velvet is of exceptional quality, so soft your fingers hardly know they're touching it, and of such pure brilliant crimson as to make you blink."
Deborah Devonshire, Wait for me! (John Murray, 2010)
