May Manton 906 - Embroidery for Corset Bag

Best guess is the 19-teens.

This one is in the category of "Who knew?" Who knew that ladies made bags for their corsets? Who knew that they then embroidered them? (and even spent money on transfer patterns for the designs!)

Interestingly, this pattern for embroidering a long, narrow bag dates to a period when corsets had reached a rather extreme length.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art dates this fine example to 1917-1919.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Particularly when packing corsets for traveling, the laces, stud-and-loop busks, and the garters all had the potential to snag, so the corset bag protected a lady's frillies from her corset.  But protecting the corset itself is important as well.  Good quality corsets could be quite expensive, and a lady might have several.  As well as an "everyday" corset, a lady might have one suitable for evening clothes, or a flexible, lighter-weight model for summer or sports wear.  I assume that each bag was design to hold only a single corset.

I've never come across a reference to a corset bag before.  From the nineteenth century onward, ladies' magazines frequently featured pages of embroidery projects, but I don't recall ever coming across a project for a corset bag.  And while one assumes that some embroidery projects (such as the hot water bottle cover I featured in 2010) made their way to the tables of fancywork fairs, I can't imagine it would have been considered in very good taste to display corset bags in public.  On the other hand, when not made for oneself, corset bags might have been lovely gifts between sisters, or as a little gift to a bride, as a complement to her trousseau.  If you start right away, you might be able to knock out a few corset bags for the June brides on your list this year.  Good luck!