Dolly Tree had a great love for Paris. She was conversant in French, spent a lot of time in the French capital and from the outset of her career as a designer placed great importance on her work for the French music hall. She had an undoubted popularity that was expressed frequently in the press and in 1923, for example, The Bioscope wrote This young dress designer who works chiefly in Paris... has a great vogue in France. Indeed, it is likely that her first costume designs for a major show were realised in Paris before her debut in London.

In the 1920's Paris became the undisputed international capital of pleasure and was regarded as the cultural and artistic centre of Europe with a reputation for staging some of the most spectacular revues in the world. Interestingly, the role of the designer was different. Unlike London, the Parisian theatre directors and stars did not on the whole secure favoured designers with the notable exception of Mistinguett using Gesmar from 1917 until his death in 1928. The most crucial factor in Paris was the importance of the costume maker who played a pivotal role in each show. Unlike London where the designer selected the costumier, in Paris the costumier selected the designer.

During 1919 Dolly Tree must have made presentations to all the major costumiers, and secured contracts from the two biggest, Pascuad and Max Weldy. However, unlike London, it is more difficult to verify Dolly Tree's extensive activities in Paris, although she must have been as active in Paris as she was in London. Throughout the 1920's she contributed designs to most of the great music halls in Paris, including the Folies Bergere and the Concert Mayol, dressed the Dolly Sisters in several shows and later from New York designed costumes for the three Edmund Sayag's floor shows at the famous Ambassadors Theatre which became known as the most prestigious theatre-restaurant in all of Europe.

With the advent of the 1920's Max Weldy became the most important costumier in Paris and a pivotal figure in the growth of design, particularly for the Folies Bergere which was his Parisian flagship. But Weldy's expertise was seen all over Europe and he also supplied costumes to all the major New York producers. Weldy's success partly rested on his astute use of the best designers from throughout Europe such as Zig, Jean Le Seyeux, Dany, Rene Ranson and Georges Barbier, Erte, Dolly Tree, Hugh Willoughby, Alec Shanks, Louis Curti, Umberto Brunelleschi, Paul Seltenhammer, Borge Fysher, Ladislas Czettel and Jose de Zamora.

Unfortunately a balanced view of costume design for the Parisian musical hall has been somewhat obscured by the glittering edifice that has become what I term 'the myth of Erte', a myth that Erte himself propagated by being a shrewd self publicist. Over the years many observers have placed Erte on a pedestal as almost the sole representation of Parisian music hall design and his work has been trumpetted as being far superior to anyone else providing a model to which other designers aspired. Many researchers have failed to be objective and some actually refer to other costume designers as 'acolytes' of Erte which is extremely inaccurate and misleading. Erte's work was exceptional, but a more balanced view must accept that so was the work of many other accomplished and independent designers who worked alongside him, including Dolly Tree.

Dolly Tree's work for Weldy was extensive although it is unclear exactly when she started working for him but it may have been during his first collaboration at the Folies Bergere in 1919 with Paris Vertigo. As a result it is quite possible that Weldy was not only responsible for introducing Erte to the Folies Bergere in 1919 but also Dolly Tree. Significantly it would appear that Dolly Tree was the first British person and the first female designer to work for the Folies Bergere.

Dolly Tree contributed designs for the 1920 edition entitled L'Amour En Folie with the spectacular Grand Defile des Reines de Paris (The procession of the Queens of Paris). For Folies Sur Folies in 1922 she dressed virtually the entire show which included the sensational Pour Que Les Femmes Solient Jolies (Let Women be Beautiful) with representations of flowers, furs and feathers. For the latter there were showgirls dressed as the parrot, the ibis, the ostrich, the peacock, the cockerel, the bird of paradise, the blue bird, the fire bird and culminated in the exotic 'Le Tourbillon de Plumes' (A Whirlwind of feathers).

For En Pleine Folie in 1923 she created a series of surreal costumes for Les Nuits du Bois (Night in the Woods) a tableaux representing the legendary nocturnal 'goings on' in the Bois de Bologne with dryads perched in the trees and pairs of satyrs and nymphs (une excite) wearing unusual gowns. Another symbolic scene was all about Montmarte being the Parisian underworld and featured showgirls wearing fantastic and bizarre costumes representing a range of drugs including opium, ether, morphine and cocaine.

Through Weldy, Dolly Tree's creations appeared in other European shows staged in the 1920's in Madrid, Barcelona, Lyons, Valencia, Rome and Brussels. This included a 'hashish' number for a revue in Marseilles and a series of designs representing elements of smoking such as a cigar, tobaco and hookah or an oriental tobacco pipe for an unidentifed show.

The outrageous Dolly Sisters, identical Hungarian twins were a sensational dancing act that became the toast of cafe society on both sides of the Atlantic during the period 1914-1928. They delighted their audiences with the sheer extravagance of their elaborate and identical costumes and perfectly matched routines. After making their mark in New York during the teens, they arrived in London in the early 1920's but finally made Paris their true professional home starring in a series of extravagant revues giving Josephine Baker and Mistinguett a run for their money. Dolly Tree knew them well and also worked extensively with their brother the choreographer and producer Edward Dolly. In 1923 she created the costumes for the scene entitled 'Le Chale Espagnol' (Spanish Shawl) for the Dollies in Oh Les Belles Filles at the Palace Theatre and in the summer of 1925 created all the costumes for Edmund Sayag?s summer spectacle at the Kursall in Ostend with the Dolly Sisters. But there were allegedly other collaborations which sadly remain elusive.

In the late 1920's from her base in New York, Dolly Tree landed one of the most prestigious assignments that Paris had to offer. Her presence in Paris was revitalised when she designed all the costumes and sets for Edmund Sayag's floor shows at the luxurious Ambassadors Restaurant, which became the world famous night-time rendezvous for the rich and famous and the toast of Paris through three editions in 1927, 1928 and 1929. During this period she also provided unspecified designs that appeared in the 1928 and 1929 editions of the Folies Bergere.