“I have a predilection for designers who in a way make us think differently about fashion, who go beyond notions of wearability or functionality,” he said. “Obviously utility and practicality is one aspect of fashion, but so are ideas and concepts.”

But the value of the Roddis togs on display at the Henry Ford, many of which are anonymously made, lies precisely in their cumulative serviceability.

Though better known for showcasing planes, trains and automobiles, such as the Lincoln Continental four-door convertible that was carrying John F. Kennedy at the moment of his assassination, the museum is no slouch in the wardrobe department either. Stored in its subterranean morgue (along with quilts made by the African-American sharecropper Susana Allen Hunter and countless other treasures) are its own Diors, Balenciagas and other couture items owned by Elizabeth Parke Firestone, of the tire family, exhibited here in 2005, as well as an example of the short-lived bridge line of the pilot Amelia Earhart.

Yet, said Edward Maeder, an alumnus of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art who oversaw the restoration of these items and, with one of Augusta’s nieces, Jane Bradbury, wrote the substantive and mesmerizing book that accompanies the exhibit of the Roddis collection, “When I first took it out of the closet, with a few exceptions, it was kind of a thrift-store collection — ordinary suits, ordinary dresses.”

Shown here are lives spent devoted to public service as well as private recreation. Along with being an ardent amateur archivist, Augusta was a longtime member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and a fierce advocate of education. Her father, Hamilton, known as “the dean of the U.S. plywood industry,” outfitted ships for World War II (as well as Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose), and along with the frocks there are walking sticks, seersucker suits and spectator shoes.