Leather handbag, opera glasses, fan, mirror, note card with pencil and powder puff, Lemiere, France, ca. 1910

Opera handbag made of beige leather lined with cream silk. The carrying handle is of beige plaited silk trimmed with two matching tassels. Rectangular shape with a flap fastening with a brass lever catch. The bag is fitted with a snap-fastening change purse at the top. Below this is a scalloped pocket which contained a leather-backed mirror, a bone note card, pencil, opera glasses, fan of embroidered white silk to which are stitched gilt spangles. The sticks of the fan are of white bone, hinged and decorated with brass studs and eyelets. A rectangular slot is below this. On the bottom flap is a small button fastening purse containing a white swansdown powder puff.

Given by Miss N. L. Foster

The first few years of the twentieth century saw, for the lady of leisure, a continuation of the fashionable preoccupations of the nineteenth century. Magazines of the day describe bags for every occasion, from fitted leather bags with telescopic opera glasses and folding fan to drawstring theatre bags with a mirror set into the base. There were leather 'shopping' bags and even briefcase bags, for many more women were entering the professional work force and supported women's suffrage. This example contains a change purse, mirror, bone note card, pencil, swansdown powder puff, telescopic opera glasses and white organdie folding fan with gilt spangles.

T.219 to F-1965