This dress and coat ensemble has a label from Nordstrom Best, a short-lived name for merged fashion retail businesses Best’s Apparel and Nordstrom. Best’s was a women’s clothing store founded by Dorothy Cabot Best and Ivan Lovich Best. The store opened in 1925 at 1520 Third Avenue and then moved in 1935 to a larger location at 5th and Pine. Wallin & Nordstrom was founded as a shoe store in 1901 by John Nordstrom and Carl Wallin. The “Wallin” was dropped in the late 1920s, when both original partners retired and sold their shares to Nordstrom’s sons. In the 1960s Nordstrom was still in the shoe business but the third generation was preparing to take over and was considering expansion into new ventures. The Best family was still reeling from the death of Dorothy Best and looking at a possible sale. In 1963 Nordstrom acquired Best’s Apparel and briefly ran each business separately. In 1966 they began rebranding as Nordstrom Best and opening new stores under that name. In 1973 the “Best” was dropped and the store returned to being just “Nordstrom” but now selling a full range of fashionable clothing in addition to shoes. The trim on this coat is jaguar fur which peaked in popularity in the 1960s and early 1970s. The desirability of this spotted fur in the fashion industry led jaguar populations to near extinction. In 1975 they were given protection by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) which banned international trade of live jaguars and their skins.