Tanko Molnár Maria-Theresa, owner of the collection, is a retired teacher. She has been living in this town all her life. Her father and grandfather were tailors who specialized in Szekely clothes. She was familiar from early childhood with the Szekler folk costumes of Madaras-Ciuc. She also got to know the folk costumes from neighboring villages.
Over the years she noted that the traditional costume from her village is changing, shifting and evening out. Traditional garb was colorful in the past. Women and girls wore different Szekely clothes according to their age. This changed and became standardized. Slowly, the old garments remained in closets or were sold. Interestingly, in the neighboring villages this change was happening at a slower pace.
Her objective was to preserve traditional garb, so she started collecting garments from the past, skirts, aprons, photographs of the past and any objects that were costume related. She has sown 37 small folk costumes for dolls. Of these, 6 costumes now reside at the Ethnographic Museum in Keszthely in Hungary. The exhibition includes numerous original or recreated costumes, a collection of postcards and a collection of 800 old photos.
The space allotted for the collection is not very big, but it fits the owner's vision for the exhibition.
During her activity she took down information regarding Seckler costumes and our habits, which resulted in four books (2008, Customs and traditions of Mădăraș; 2009, Past and present Seckler costumes, wearing Seckler costumes at various events in the Madaras Ciuc village; 2010, Important families and talented people from Mădăraș).