Biography

Tessa Welborn was the designer responsible for the bikini worn by Ursula Andress in the film Dr. No; she was also an actress and, in her later years, the owner of a private drinking club in the West End of London. Tessa Prendergast, as she then was, set up her clothes design business with a partner in the late 1950s in her native Jamaica. Her most important commission came when the makers of Dr. No invited her to design costumes for the Bond film, including what was to become the world's most celebrated bikini. Miss Andress wore the ivory-coloured bathing costume, adorned with an army belt and commando knife, as she emerged from the sea on to a tropical beach. The outfit was sold in 2001 at Christie's to Robert Earl, owner of the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain, for £41,125. Tessa Welborn was born Marie Therese Prendergast into a prosperous family in Jamaica on October 17 1928, although only half a dozen people were ever allowed to know her age. Her father, Louis Prendergast, was a plantation owner who died when she was in her infancy; her mother later married Noel Nethersole, who established the People's National Party with Norman Manley and became minister of finance.