VintageGriffin.com

Online museums are great. The official ones, like the Met's Costume Institute, are, of course, fab. But there are smaller venues that are driven by very personal passions, and they can, in their ways, be just as informative and enjoyable. You don't even necessarily need storage, conservation facilities, or security. If you've got some expertise, Internet access, Photoshop, and a scanner, you can be a valuable cyber-curator.

Here are three online museums you'll love...

1. Des Chapeaux
Ok, well, the first one might seem more like a blog than a museum, because it uses blog formatting. But there's little commentary. It's a huge, online picture catalog of hats. From magazines, advertisements, period photographs. The source material is varied, but the subject matter is not -- it's hats. (And it's wonderful. And, it's in French.)

2. Vintage Car Ads
I'm not sure what the official name of this site is, because it's in French, and I'm not in the mood to run it through Babelfish. But it's a fantastic road trip through photographic auto-imagry from period advertisements. Because of the eternal bond between hotrod and hot babe, there's also an equally strong female vintage fashion element. Track everything from hairstyles, makeup, and clothing from the '40s through ambiguous recentness.

3. The Museum of Costume, Bath
For a couple of hundred years, Bath was one of the most fashionable seasoning spots in England. It was the place to be seen, and be seen in your most sensational ensembles. Fittingly, the Museum of Costume has made its home there, and though it is certainly an epicenter for antique and vintage fashions, it is a most forward-thinking fashion museum. Witness the museum's "Dress of the Year" award, given to a contemporary garment that is judged to have design worth that will be, in the future, assessed as timeless.