The right accessory can transform an outfit. It’s a shame then that they are so tenuously linked to us. Who hasn’t lost a hat to the wind? Or left an umbrella in a taxi? Luckily, some adornments have managed to hang in there. Because age has increased their fragility, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston set about making mounts that help preserve the accessories among their 40,000 examples of fashion arts. This slideshow exhibition shows how custom boxes cradle and protect fans (the museum has more than 600), some dating all the way back to the 2nd millennium B.C. —C.J.F.