Raised by a Presbyterian missionary to India, Tinne attended boarding school in England.
She trained and worked as a teacher before marrying a wealthy doctor in 1910, at which point she started buying clothes from department stores in Bold Street, Liverpool, as well as having bespoke items made by a local dress maker.
Her collection, which has been donated to the National Museums Liverpool, contains over 700 items and is the largest from an individual owned by a museum in the United Kingdom.
The clothes are of high quality, with many items still unworn in their original tissue paper and boxes, the price tags and delivery information still attached.