May Manton 906 - Embroidery for Corset Bag

Best guess is the 19-teens or a little earlier.

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 probably 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

In 1910 the magazine The Women's Home Companion offered kits for laundry bags, sponge bags, and corset bags, in stamped linen in pink, blue, lavender, or white.  "A most useful set of bags either for the college girl or for the home girl...These bags are especially useful for traveling and they would make a very pretty gift for birthday or Christmas. The stamped linen bag would set you back 40 cents.  Fifteen cents more would get you the thread and the cord.

Womens Home Journal, 1910

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.

McCall 3495 - Men's and Boys' Undershirts

Latter half of the 1920s.

Recent weather forecasts around here have featured "freezing fog," which for some reason sounds colder to me than "snow," so warm garments of all kinds seem like a really good idea just now, and an undershirt with an extra layer of material to keep the upper body warm is particularly attractive.

While patterns for men's undershirts are not uncommon, this is the first time I've seen this particular cold-weather design offered.  Oddly, I was able to obtain two copies of this pattern in less than six months.

Note that the hip gusset is visible in the illustration.  While these gussets were (and still are, in some cases) used in men's shirts and under shirts, it's a little unusual to see them shown in the illustration.  McCall wasn't taking any chances - they even provided a pattern piece for the gusset, which is quite unusual.  Typically only written instructions are given, sometimes indicating the size of the gusset, but sometimes just instructing the maker to cut a square of material.  Hip gussets are not just a nicety - the side seams will pull out without gussets to take the strain, particularly if the wearer is engaged in strenuous work.

Butterick 1566 - Ladies' Sack Chemise with Round or Square Neck

1895. This pattern is featured on page 239 of the Delineator magazine for February, in the article "New Styles of Underwear."

The article provides extensive details on how the chemise could be made up, using both rather luxurious trimmings, and then using more economical trimmings.

India lawn was chosen for the development of the round-necked chemise, pattern No. 1566, price 10d. or 20 cents, being used in shaping. From the neck edge falls a frill of English embroidery that is caught up at the center, and at the center of the front, a deeper frill falls below the upper one. The neck edge is finished with embroidered revering threaded with pink baby ribbon, which is formed in a rosette in front. The embroidery is applied plainly about each arm's-eye and is narrowed under the arm, and the embroidered revering is used as a completion, being run with ribbon that is formed in a rosette at the bottom of the arm's-eye. The embroidered frills could be omitted and short, lengthwise rows of Valenciennes lace insertion and wide embroidered beading used in alternation could trim the front, while a frill of lace could rise at the neck edge. Similar frills could trim arms'-eyes, and a ruffle of the goods edged like the neck could finish the bottom.

This pattern seems to have just barely avoided being destroyed by time and inattention.  Typically these early Butterick patterns arrive folded into a packet that measures about 5 inches square, with the label pasted on.  Envelopes don't seem to have been supplied, and separate instruction sheets won't appear for another twenty years.  (The Shawl and Traveling  Case 4514 pattern dates to about the same time.)  My guess is that at some point this pattern was rolled  up and subsequently became squashed at the bottom of a drawer or shelf.  Mice or bugs or both could have attacked the paste used to attach the label to the pattern.

Here is how the pattern looked when I first unfolded it.

And here it is after a careful pressing with a cool, dry iron. (I've rearranged the pattern pieces to reflect the way the chemise would be put together.) The pattern pieces actually show few signs of use. Outside of the damage caused by poor storage conditions, there are almost no tears or pin holes, and the notches are still crisply cut.  Note the notch at the bottom indicating the hem line.

This is about as simple a pattern as you can get for a chemise, and home dress-making books of this period usually give ample instructions for drafting a chemise pattern on your own.

From Needlework, Knitting, Cutting Out, by Elizabeth Rosevear, 1894

The seam allowance of only 1/4" seems rather narrow if the maker intends to fell the seams, as should be done for body linen.  Note that yardages are given for lace trimming and insertion, but you're expected to know how to apply this, as well as any facings for the sleeve and neck edges.

The Sears and Roebuck Catalog for Fall 1902 offers chemises for ladies ranging in price from 98 cents to $1.89.  Even the low-priced model offers lace edgings and insertions (though probably not of very high quality.)

Let's wander over to the yard goods department of the catalog and see what it'll cost us to make up the Butterick chemise in the most economical way possible. (I'm assuming that white sewing thread and needles are always kept on hand in the household.)

Pattern                                     20¢
Lawn, 2 and 3/4 yards, 32" wide, @ 20¢/yard 55¢
Lace trimming, sold @ 12 yards for 8¢        8¢
Lace insertion, sold @ 12 yards for 18¢     18¢
TOTAL                                     $1.01

Considering only the materials and not the value of the maker's labor, the home-made chemise is three cents more than Sears least expensive purchased chemise, but 88¢ less than the most expensive one.

Updated on January 26, 2023 with new information from the Delineator magazine.

Du Barry 5904 - Men's Undershirt and Shorts

1944.

Styles in men's underclothes change slowly.  See Economy 4617 for largely similar men's under garments dating about 40 years earlier.  DuBarry is Woolworth's house brand of patterns.  They were produced by Simplicity.

There seems to be a strong expectation by the designers that you'll make this up in stripes; the yardage chart very carefully states the yardage for lengthwise striped material.  Cutting the waistband crosswise means that you don't have to try to match the stripes in the shorts, but this option disappears in the layout for a large size, when to make the most efficient use of the goods the waistband is cut lengthwise.

The instructions state the seams should all be flat stitched (we would generally say flat felled now) but they don't give instructions on how to do this; you're expected to know how.

Illustrations on patterns for men's clothing frequently show the gentleman smoking a pipe (see the small line drawing); perhaps this manly activity is supposed to distract us from the fact that we're walking around Woolworth's carrying a picture of a somewhat scantily clad male not related to us.

Pictorial Review 1543 - Ladies' Athletic Combination Undergarment

Mid 1920's.

Here's what to wear in the event you were wondering about the correct underpinnings for a gymnasium suit. This combination garment is a close relative of men's union suits. No fabric recommendations are given, but the pattern does specifically call for some knitted fabric (like that for men's undershirts) for the back waistband. Otherwise, cotton broadcloth or lawn are likely choices.

When not participating in sports, women at this period had an almost bewildering variety of undergarments to choose from, including corset covers, (no longer necessarily worn over corsets) brassieres, which seem to be identical to close-fitting corset covers, camisoles, chemises, step-in or envelope chemises, drawers, bloomers, and petticoats.

McCall 3720 Men's and Boys' Union Suit

Late 1920s.

This short-legged version of the union suit doesn't seem to show up much past the 1920s.  I'm still waiting for an expert on vintage men's underclothes to stumble across this blog and explain all the things that I can't quite fathom.

One of my Women's Institute books of this same period recommends that if making these in quantity, one buy a knit men's undershirt and cut it up to use for the back waistband.  This is an extremely sensible idea.

It's interesting to see this garment made up in prints and stripes.  From a sartorial perspective, was it acceptable for a gentleman's print undergarment to show through his white shirt?

At this time McCall didn't offer a separate instruction sheet, but printed some minimal instructions on the pattern pieces themselves, must as Pictorial Review did.

Official American Red Cross Pattern No. 80 - Underdrawers

About 1917-1918.  The Red Cross supplied refugees as well as prisoners of war.

Different pattern companies produced patterns for the American Red Cross.   Butterick produced their usual separate instruction sheet.  I love the notation "SEAMS!!!"

I need somebody to tell me what the narrow straps are used for; surely one doesn't attach one's braces to these?

Economy 4617 - Men's Undershirt and Drawers

This one needs some research. I'm not familiar with Sears's Economy branded patterns. For those of us who grew up with the big Sears catalog and their three grades of "good," "better," and "best," this looks like it might be their "good" line. I also know next to nothing about the evolution of men's undergarments, so I can't put a date to this one, though if forced, I'd date this one fairly early - 1900 to 1910, perhaps. These garments would probably have been made out of lawn for summer and flannel for winter.

Most of my early sewing books give extensive directions on making women's underclothes. making the argument that making one's underclothes is economical and that the choice of decoration gives a woman some area for creative expression. For men's underclothes, the only incentive would seem to be economy and it's hard for me to imagine a household in which making mens underclothes would be a necessity. As I said, more research is required.