VISITORS to one of the current exhibitions at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum may spot a single wedding dress by a long-forgotten designer named Isobel.

The dress was designed in 1953 by the haute couture designer, who was known professionally by her first name, for the wedding of her former secretary Anne Molineux to Gordon Hodson, who had met at a New Year party held at Isobel’s country home in Sussex.

Made from silk lace embroidered with diamante and pearl beads, it had a close-fitting bodice and full skirt style reminiscent of Kate Middleton’s wedding dress.

Anne, now 84 and living near Tunbridge Wells, was “completely thrilled” with it, describing it as an “absolute dream”.

The dress was wrapped in tissue paper and put away, until last year when it was brought out for the couple’s diamond wedding anniversary. It was the Hodsons’ daughter-in-law Gail who was so stunned by the beauty of the dress that she began to look into Isobel, an haute couture designer.

The daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants, Isobel became one of the most successful London fashion houses in the interwar years, with a salon at 73 Grosvenor Street, London, where she employed 400 or 500 people according to different reports, and held swanky fashion shows, and a showroom in Harrogate.

Her designs were extremely popular in the United States and her clients included the stage and screen star Gertrude Lawrence.

But Isobel fell out of fashion after the Second World War, when a series of new young male designers such as Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies generated heavy media interest because they designed for royalty.

Isobel’s career faded and she died in Hove in 1973, largely forgotten.

However, in the V&A’s exhibition, called Wedding Dresses 1775-2014, she has been rediscovered.

The museum’s curator of textiles and fashion Edwina Ehrlich had found old Pathe News coverage of one of Isobel’s fashion shows and wrote in a book on fashion that “no garments designed by Isobel are known to survive in the larger British museum collections”.

Until now. “We’ve saved her from oblivion,” Ms Ehrman told The Times.

• Wedding Dresses 1775-2014 is at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7, until March 15 next year. For details, visit vam.ac.uk.

• Did you know Isobel when she lived in Sussex? Women Actually would love to hear from you. Email womenactually@theargus.co.uk.