Maine Memory Network

Embroidered boat neck dress, ca. 1835

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1835 Media: cotton
This record contains 7 images.

Headband worn by opera singer Lillian Nordica, ca. 1900

Contributed by: Nordica Memorial Association Date: circa 1900 Location: Farmington Media: Cloth

Fashionable Maine: early twentieth century clothing

Maine residents kept pace with the dramatic shift in women’s dress that occurred during the short number of years preceding and immediately following World War I. The long restrictive skirts, stiff collars, body molding corsets and formal behavior of earlier decades quickly faded away and the new straight, dropped waist easy-to-wear clothing gave mobility and freedom of movement in tune with the young independent women of the casual, post-war jazz age generation.

Northern Threads: Two centuries of dress at Maine Historical

Organized by themed vignettes, Northern Threads shares stories about Maine people, while exploring how the clothing they wore reveals social, economic, and environmental histories. This re-examination of Maine Historical Society's permanent collection is an opportunity to consider the relevance of historic clothing in museums, the ebb and flow of fashion styles, and the complexities of diverse representation spanning 200 years of collecting.

Historic Clothing Collection - Eighteenth Century - Page 3 of 3

"Fancy silk embroidered vests, such as Samuel Freeman's circa 1775-1785 vest in the MHS collection, are the most commonly surviving items of…"

Historic Clothing Collection - 1960-1970 - Page 1 of 3

"… campuses, emerged encompassing a medley of home embroidered and patched blue jeans, tie dyed T-shirts, message T-shirts, pants for women, cheap…"