The dresses soon reached the resort towns of Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco and Mazatlán. In 1963, Elizabeth Taylor was in Puerto Vallarta with Richard Burton, who was starring in Night of the Iguana, which was being filmed there, and she happened upon a small house belonging to the designer Josefa, who was displaying her creations from the branches of a tree in front. She and the crew that had accompanied her, bought all of the dresses, and she began to wear them in Los Angeles upon her return, where they garnered much attention.
She was a loyal patron of Josefa’s throughout the next decade, and many of her friends followed suit, including Princess Grace, Diana Ross, Sophia Loren, Loretta Young, Nancy Reagan, Deborah Kerr, Ladybird Johnson, Princess Anne and Farah Diba. The trend soon caught on not only at the high-end retailers in the United States, but in England, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Denmark as well.