The Sugino Costume Museum is ensconced among campus buildings in a quiet residential area in Tokyo's Meguro district frequented by college boys in the days before World War II who were curious to glimpse female dressmaking students in stylish Western clothes.
Today, while Western clothing is no longer a rarity, people continue to visit. Only now it is to take a peek at history through the evolution of Western fashion.
Opened in May 1957 as the country's first museum dedicated to Western dresses and accessories, it was built upon the vast collection of the late Yoshiko Sugino, founder of the dressmaking school Sugino Gakuen, and her husband, Shigeichi.