The Story of a Dress

This short, released as part of the publicity campaign for The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), tells the story of the red dress worn by Debbie Reynolds in the film's dance number finale. It begins with costume designer Morton Haack, director Charles Walters, and producer Lawrence Weingarten going over preliminary designs. We next see studio seamstresses cutting patterns and making the dress, which includes the hand sewing of sequins. In the final scene, Reynolds and costar Harve Presnell perform a test-dance to make sure that the costume will look its best when the scene is filmed.