Shop Our Store
Our Museum Gift Shop, is open year round and offers a number of unique gifts, books and New Milford related items. Purchases may be made at any time from our eBay store
Bits and Pieces
Historical Costumes through the centuries, as recorded in our collection. Take a walk through history as we select the finest little (and big) treasures to share with you.
There are over 200 clothing accessories, and well over 150 separate dresses and costuming items listed in our collection database online - and that doesn’t include the hats and shoes and miscellany! There are skirts, swim wear, underwear, and children’s clothes.
The history of our town is wrapped in the mantles of what we wore each day to work, and to play. From the post-Revolutionary Empire styles (even then, Paris was the heart of all that defines fashion), to the long skirts and bustles of Victorian America to the mini-skirt and pantsuit, women’s fashions have changed on an almost daily basis. 
Men, of course, wear almost identical clothes now as they have since the Civil War, but the hat is currently out of vogue.
So much of fashion through the ages has been a reflection of the times. Empire gowns showed the freedom of movement that the French Revolution had shown in society - though 
the Empire hardly represented the ideals of the Revolution. The Victorian era was constrained into distinct notions of what comprised civilized or acceptable behavior, and the gowns of the time are equally so. But were the dress styles changed by zippers, or were they just an enabling technology?
Needless to say, less of the modern era is represented, little that is later than the Eisenhower years, but even those costumes show where the hearts and minds of New Milford were.
Join us for a stroll through the history of our town as seen in our ’glad rags’.
Opening reception March 22, 2019 at 7:00pm, light refreshments will be served.
