AN elaborate headdress made for the film star Vivien Leigh by set and costume designer Oliver Messel is among the star attractions of an exhibition opening at his former West Sussex home, Nymans.

The romantic ruins of the house, which was destroyed in a fire in 1947 and partially rebuilt, will house more than 100 pieces from the personal archive of the Gone With The Wind star, which was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum from her daughter Suzanne Farrington, who died last year.

Vivien Leigh: Public Faces, Private Lives is the first exhibition of the archive and part of it will delve into the creative collaboration between Vivien and Oliver, her favourite set designer.

Britain’s leading theatre designer from the 1930s to the mid-1960s, his colourful and opulent costume designs made him the most highly paid and sought-after designer in the world.

The pair worked together on A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1937) and the 1945 film version of George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra. His costume for her Cleopatra, as well as his original costume sketch and stills from the film, which have never previously been displayed, will form part of the exhibition, along with the magnificent headdress he made for Vivien’s performance as Cleopatra. The headdress has not been exhibited before outside of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has organised the exhibition.

It will also feature a 1943 letter from Vivien to Oliver, which was recently discovered by Oliver’s nephew Thomas Messel in a family archive and never before seen in public. It reads: “I have of course told Pascal (Gabriel Pascal, director of Caesar and Cleopatra) that nobody in the world must do the costumes except you.” Oliver borrowed large fans from Nymans to use as the feathered fans used by servants in the funeral scene in the movie.

Thomas Messel told The Argus: “Oliver Messel was the most celebrated English theatrical designer of all time, and he was the pre-eminent designer of the 20th century, and his work has inspired new generations of designers and architects all over the world.

“Consequently, it is only natural that his designs and work should be on show at his family home Nymans.

“Vivien Leigh and Oliver had a very close relationship, and he greatly admired her beauty. I much look forward to visiting what I am sure will be a beautiful, romantic and informative show, set in the appropriately romantic setting of the ruined mansion of Nymans.”

He described Keith Lodwick, V&A curator of the exhibition, as “a visionary creator of exhibitions”.

Mr Lodwick said: “When we acquired the archive, there were 10,000 pieces because Vivien Leigh kept everything. It has taken a year to go through everything and selecting 100 or so was very difficult.

“Vivien Leigh was an enduring icon of stage and screen and my favourite piece of the exhibition is a very, very beautiful costume designed by Cecil Beaton for the 1948 movie Anna Karenina. Vivien, as Anna, arrives in Moscow and makes her first appearance in the film wearing a glorious velvet dress trimmed with fur and a fur cape, muff and hat.

“And also magical is the headdress Oliver made for Vivien’s role as Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Old Vic in 1937. It is an exquisitely made piece that was both magical and practical as it was light to wear and shows how resourceful Oliver was. It’s amazing it has survived from that era.”

Mr Lodwick added: “Vivien and Oliver were great friends. They never fell out, and I haven’t found anyone who ever said a bad word about Oliver. From what I can gather, he was great fun, hard-working, a perfectionist and very much a hands-on designer - he would design a work on paper but he was very skilled at turning that into a 3D prop, and that was unusual as most designers relied on a maker to do that. His great talent was in being able to design something that was both beautiful and wearable. The film star Jessie Matthews said that an organza dress he had designed was so elegant it made her feel like a million dollars.

“And he was adored by everyone who worked with him.”

The placing of the objects for the exhibition has been organised by Nymans exhibition and programme officer Nikki Caxton. “The exhibition feels very intimate, because it is housed in personal family space here,” she said. “It’s the first exhibition in newly refurbished space, which had once been family bedrooms. We’re really excited to be hosting the exhibition here, where we have the wonderful connection between Vivien Leigh and Oliver Messel, and for the Messel family, it’s a brilliant way of getting more people to discover Oliver Messel. It’s keeping their history alive.”

She added: “For me, the standout item is Vivien Leigh’s headdress from Caesar and Cleopatra. For years, I’d seen photographs of it and it is very personal for everyone here at Nymans to see it here. And when you actually see it, it’s the detail that makes you gasp. “There’s a wig built into it, which I don’t think many people realise, and the detailing makes it seem as though it wasn’t really made for a film.

“Some of the photographs of Vivien are absolutely beautiful too, particularly one of her as Aurora, Goddess of Dawn.”

Vivien Leigh shot to stardom for her role in Gone with the Wind, becoming the first British actress to win an Academy Award and the country’s first international movie star. She was married to actor Laurence Olivier for 20 years and the celebrated couple co-starred in plays and films. Just a year after their 1960 divorce, Vivien bought the country estate Tickerage Mill, near Uckfield, where she died from tuberculosis aged 57 in 1967.

Oliver enjoyed a carefree childhood at Nymans, where he was brought up in an artistic family. The house, which was bought in 1890 by wealthy German stockbroker Ludwig Messel, who turned the 600-acre estate into a place for family life and entertainment, became a playground for fantasy and dressing up, where the children commissioned beautiful costumes and put on grand productions.

“It’s no surprise that the Messel children all went on to develop artistic talents and careers in later life. Oliver continued to return to Nymans as his career took off, even creating a studio space in the grounds where he’d work on early designs. It was obviously a place that really inspired him,” explained Nikki. “The Gothic ruins here provide the perfect dramatic backdrop for the exhibition and invoke a real sense of theatre.”

Oliver originally trained as a painter, and began his 50-year stage career in 1925 designing for Diaghilev's Russian Ballet. He branched out in the 1930s, designing plays, films, musicals, ballets, operas, textiles, interior décor and wartime camouflage. Following a glittering Hollywood career, which would see him nominated for an Academy Award for set and costume design on the 1959 movie Suddenly, Last Summer, which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn, he moved to Barbados and designed homes, including a villa on Mustique for Princess Margaret. He died in 1978.

The exhibition is the first time both the professional and personal life of Vivien Leigh will be showcased. There are letters from her husband Laurence Olivier, private love letters sent to Vivien by him, and letters from celebrities of the day including fellow Hollywood star Bette Davis, the American playwright Tennessee Williams, Sir Winston Churchill and the Queen Mother.

Another letter is from the actress Judi Dench at the start of her own career: “It [a letter from Leigh] has been read and re-read at least three hundred times and is one of my most treasured possessions.”

The stunning red Christian Dior gown Vivien wore in the 1958 movie Duel of Angels will also be on show, along with her headdress from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and costume sketches by the designer Cecil Beaton.

And the actress will be brought vividly to life for visitors in a 3D slide show of stereoscopic colour photographs, which give a detailed insight into her career, including film, fashion, theatre and working with Olivier.

• Vivien Leigh: Public Faces, Private Lives is at Nymans, Staplefield Lane, Handcross, from Wednesday, June 1 until Sunday, September 4. Open 11am-4pm, normal admission charge only. The exhibition will take place within the house by a timed ticket system; timed tickets are available on the day and cannot be pre-booked. Visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/nymans or phone 01444 405250.