Accessories the key in every fashion era

If the fashionistas from ''Sex and the City" traveled back to the 19th century, they would find more conservative styles, but one element would be much as it is today: Accessories mean everything.

At the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, items from Manolo Blahnik shoes to Coach purses to early 20th-century dusters are part of a new exhibit that looks at accessories as part of popular culture and examines the issue of fashion versus function.

Carrie Bradshaw & Co. would totally dig seeing which ''finishing touch" was in style at various times during the past two centuries. But Bradshaw might be dismayed to note that if she lived in the 1870s, a hat would most certainly have covered her curly locks as she breezed down the streets of New York.

''There are approximately 350 pieces in the exhibition," said cocurator Diane Fagan Affleck. Hats, handbags, shoes, jewelry, coats, and other pieces from the museum's collection will be on display through April 2.

Times have certainly changed over the past 200 years, but even today, the right hat or the right purse can make all the difference. The point of the exhibit is to look at accessories specifically and how they distinguish an individual, Fagan Affleck said.

Highlights of the exhibition include the Peggy Cone Collection, vintage clothes from the late jazz and swing singer, who combined her passion for music and fashion in the mid-20th century. The Bentley Collection features clothing donated by former Maryland congresswoman and Baltimore Sun reporter Helen Delich Bentley. Bentley was known as a trailblazer who used her clothing to express her personality and power.

The ''tour guide" for the exhibit, said Fagan Affleck, is only two-dimensional, but she knows her stuff: ''Bess Drest, created from an 1870s photograph of an unknown girl wearing accessories, is posted along the exhibit with labels explaining the styles and how they have changed given the year.

''Ooh, how my shoes pinched!" reads one of Bess's labels. ''I know that ladies are supposed to have small feet, but the shoes that look the best are often very painful."

''Finishing Touches" includes a broad range of hats. The earliest hats are mid-19th century, while the latest are from the 1980s, said Fagan Affleck. The theme stressed throughout the entire exhibit, particularly with the hats, is how accessories are used for fashion and function.

''We have hats that would barely cover your head, but decorated with flowers," she said. ''But there are also dusters, a unisex coat used for keeping road dust off of your clothing."

The American Textile History Museum opened in Lowell in 1997. Founded in 1960 in North Andover, the museum was known originally as the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum.

With a mission of telling America's story through the art, history, and science of textiles, the museum provides a glimpse into both history and fashion.

Even the museum staff learned a little something about fashion styles over the years with this exhibit. ''I had not realized that in upper-class circles in the late 19th century, it was inappropriate to wear sparkling jewels before noon," said Fagan Affleck, explaining that wearing precious gems early in the morning was considered too flashy.

''Most of us get dressed every day and know how we want to project our own images," she said. ''Accessories are a major way to do that."

No doubt Carrie Bradshaw would agree.