One of Australia's most important and influential 20th century interior designers, Marion Hall Best's early design career developed out of the contacts she made in Sydney's art and design circles in the 1920s and 30s and her own personal interests, particularly her passion for colour. Attending Thea Procter's Sydney painting classes in the late 20s, Best remarked: 'I knew I wanted to work in big areas of colour in a three-dimensional way which belonged to living spaces.'(quoted in Catriona Quinn, 'Sydney style: Marion Hall Best, interior designer', exhibition catalogue, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, Sydney, 1983, p11). During the 1930s several decorating commissions and more formalised training laid the foundations for an interior design career that was to span four decades.

In 1938 Best opened Marion Best Fabrics, a workroom with display area in Sydney's Woollahra, to which she later added a retail business. Up to its closure in 1974 the shop was to stock local designs - furniture by Gordon Andrews, Clement Meadmore, Roger McLay and printed fabrics by Frances Burke, Douglas Annand and others - as well as a wide range of imports. During the 1950s and 60s Best's business became an important source of contemporary products for the local design profession, supplying the latest fabrics by Marimekko and Jim Thompson and innovative furniture by Saarinen, Noguchi, Bertoia and Aarnio. In 1949 she also opened a small shop in Sydney's Rowe Street, an enclave of shops and galleries specialising in art, craft and design.

In the 1960s, at the peak of her career, Best designed many notable interiors for corporate and private clients in Sydney as well as several exhibition settings. Apart from her pioneering promotion of contemporary design through her shops and the example of her own work, Best was renowned for her use of colour in interior schemes, particularly the colour-saturated glazed finishes she developed.

While Best imported and retailed a range of furniture by local and international designers she is also known to have designed furniture herself. In the 1950s and 60s her furniture appears to have been made by the Sydney cabinet-maker A.E. Moulen, although there is little documentation detailing Best and Moulen's collaboration The day bed has been identified by Ann Gyngell who worked for Best in the 1960s. She believes the fabric is a Scottish weave that Best imported. The donor suggests the day bed may have been part of the Crebbin house interior, elements of which were auctioned by Lawson's about the time the day bed appeared on the market.

The day bed thus represents a rare example of Best's furniture design work. Simple, functional and smart it was Best's solution to the need for an informal, multi-purpose couch/bed in a low-key contemporary style. Further research may identify the interior in which it was originally placed.