Crinolines - text from http://hometown.aol.com/lycornelia
The mid XIXth century Crinoline is not really an original creation, but appears like a copy of the XVIIth century Farthingale and XVIIIth century Panier. But the crinoline is not only a fashion amongst others, it's not a fashion just for wealthy ladies and aristocrats. The crinoline is the first real popular fashion in History with an industrial production and a massive, and inexpensive, distributive . Even with all her inconveniences, the Crinoline is the first fashion for all women, rich or poor !
Crinoline, a french word, come from "Crin" (horsehair), in latin "crinis" derived from the Greek word for "Hair" . Born in XVIth century, « crinoline » is a material made of crin with cotton or lined, used for petticoats. The material is use again in the 1840's. The first patent for this « new » material is registered on june 4, 1840 by Oudinot -Lutel in Paris , France. Very soon, the 1840's seen a great number of « crinoline's » manufacturers opening their doors. But, at the beginning of the 1850's the horsehair article was falling in disuse. "The stiff jupon is still worn but very diminished in all its dimensions " (1852) . Sometimes, especially for evening dresses, it was enforced by some rolls at the
bottom to hold out the dress. Sometimes, the skirt of the dress itself might be lined in its lower part with crinoline. From the beginning of the 1850's, appears « hooped petticoats » with some hoops made of whalebone or cane, and called « crinoline » too.
It seems that the « hooped petticoats » or « cage crinoline », without petticoat, made of whire appears in 1856, (but some says 1854 or 1855). Both were permissible alternatives, and both were very used, (probably «hooped petticoats » were more used the first years of the fashion, quickly replaced, but never completely, by the « cage ».) Immediatly, in many advertisments, both are called "artificial Crinoline" and soon, only " Crinoline ". Quickly, all the dress, and not only the hoops, will be called
a « Crinoline. » Some says that Auguste Person, a french man, created the « artificial crinoline », for
some others, it's M. Tavernier, an other french, inspired by the Crystal Palace of Jospeh Paxton , build in 1851 in London ...
When the first crinolines were worn ? Henry Mayhew says that the practice of wearing crinoline (« hooped petticoats » not yet « artificial ») started to become fashionable soon after the great Exhibition (1851) . One view is that the empress Eugenie of France brought the first crinoline to England when she came on a visit with her husband, Napoleon III, in april 1855. Another view, which also credits the Empress with being the crinoline's innovator, claims that she adopted it to disguise her pregnancy later in 1855. Some says that Eugenie deliberately created the fashion to encourage the trade in expensive stuffs, yards and yards of them being necessary to each crinoline… It seems that if Eugenie completely adopted and supported this fashion, sh had not invented it.
The maximum size of the crinoline had been reached in 1859. Of course, all women don't wore crinoline, but the prevalence of the fashion be gathered from the statement that in this year, Sheffield (UK), was turning out enough crinoline wire a week for half a million crinolines, in France, between 1858 and 1864, Peugeot's works produced 4 800 000 cages by year ! " Your ladies's maid must now need have her crinoline and it has even become essential to factory girls." tells to us an English comtemporary.
"Crinoline had invaded even the smallest villages and there is no co-herd girl who don' t wore the cage one day in the week at last ". ( Paris 1862)
From 1862, The crinoline began to shrink and become flatter in front and elliptical
while the skirt was gored so that most of it hung at the back. If the crinoline distend the dress into a massive and inconvenient dome, it gave freedom to the legs by reducing the great numbers of heavy petticoats. One lady talking to her niece at the end of the
XIXth century recalled the days when crinoline came into fashion. She told her that the freedom was unbealievably marvellous after all the clutter that had preceded it. Never in her lifetime had a woman's body been so free.
There was many, many sorts of crinolines, (In Paris, for example, the new department store "le Bon Marché" offered 54 differents models !) from the
"Sansflectum", hoops covered with guttapercha, a washable variety, the Thompson's "Crown crinoline", the very popular "American cage" of 1862, weighting half a pound, the "Ondina waved crinoline" in 1863, so perfect "that a lady may ascend a steep chair...etc...without inconvenience to herself..." etc...etc... Every year since 1856, somebody announced the end of the reign of the crinoline, and, finally, it came. In 1867 first, with the pannier-puff. The crinoline still survived under a new name "crinolinette" or half-crinoline to be definitively, but slowly, supplanted by the puff and the bustle (or « faux-cul » in french) from 1868.
An interesting model of crinoline dated 1863, it consists of five bands inserted with steel, attached at distances apart by
criss-cross straps. From the bottom band is hung a coarse network of horsehair about height or nine inches in depth, also having a band of steel at its lower edge. This prevented the bottom part of the skirt from flopping inwards round the feet
(particluary useful at Ball). The crinoline opens all the way up to front, and not only in the upper part as usually; it fastens by buttons or hooks fixed to a canvas panel.
Easily
tipped or swayed, Crinoline and hoops furnished endless
tantilizing glimpses of ankles and well-shod feet, of calves,
stockinged legs, of thighs, - and even more ! everytime a woman
went up or down stairs, bent forward, moved through a doorway, or
sat down. In these days, respectables ladies often went without
any garnment whatever under their crinoline and petticoats, open
drawers excepted, but it use was not very common before the 1860's
and never universal...
With such an open-ended garnment-or nothing-beneath it, the
crinoline had the greatest capacity of all ladies's wear to
envelop and reveal the female body.
On June 3, 1859, THE
TIMES published a letter from E.S.Lycurgus. He wrote : "
...We have only to watch the curious and inquisitive glances of
the crowd, who immediately stop to see a fashinonable lady descend
from her carriage or cross a muddy street to feel that safeguard
does not exist in London. No man of ordinary feelings of delicacy
can pass an hour in the streets without seeing much to startle, if
not to shock him. These displays were becoming a great social
evil. "
Here
is the
rueful complaint of "Mr. John Smith," an
Everyman in Leslie's. He had the
misfortune to accompany his wife, dressed in her most
fashionable hoop, down Broadway: I was much
scandalized once or twice, by the determined manner in
which it perked itself into the air when my wife bent down
to examine the goods on various counters, giving a full
view of all the "interior arrangements," namely,
white flannel skirts, worked in "compound
scallop," silk stockings, and high-heeled gaiters.
Now I don't mean to say that my wife's ankles are not the
very perfection of grace and symmetry, but I do mean to
say that public opinion has a prejudice in favor of
covering that particular portion of feminine loveliness,
and consequently I was much shocked at the lawless
defiance that the hoops bade to public opinion. But when I
ventured to hint as much to Mrs. John Smith, in a modest
whisper, she called me "an impertinent little
thing," and filled my soul with consternation by the
indignant arrows that darted from her eyes.
Harper's
Weekly, May 2, 1857
« But that's not the worst; see them at a ball. There's
a pretty creature, with the most charming toilet, and face and manners to match,
throwing herself, with nonchalant grace, on an inviting lounge after a
panting waltz. Well; unfortunately the hoop is a complete circle, and will not
allow one fold of her airy drapery to fall around her feet. No; there it stands
up, bearing aloft the edge of her garments almost on a level with her own
reclining head!"
George [the brother]. "Yes, it is so; and I can assure you, girls, the
display afforded to the beholders opposite is interesting beyond description!
There's another thing. I know exactly the most popular style of garter only from
passing the high stoops at the moment the young ladies happen to be going up and
down the numerous steps. Some of them are very steep indeed, you know.
". . . No, I needn't be quiet [to his Aunt]! I only want to caution them
[his sisters] to all things in proper order, for there are no longer any
'mysteries of the toilet'; every thing is open to the severest inspection! ... I
only wish to tell you to be careful that the under-garments do cover you;
because ther upper ones are so independent that they are no protection at
all."
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When most people visualize women's clothing of the Civil War, a large hoop skirt comes to mind. The artificial crinoline was developed in 1855 or 1856 in France and was fashionable for another ten years. Before the crinoline,
a woman had to wear many layers of heavy petticoats under her skirt in order to achieve the wide-skirted profile. According to Elizabeth Ewing in Dress and Undress, "The underclothing of a lady of fashion consisted of a
chemise, long drawers trimmed with lace, a corset, a flannel petticoat, an under-petticoat three and one half yards wide, a petticoat wadded to the knees, and stiffened on the upper part with whalebones inserted a handsbreath
from one another, a white starched petticoat with three stiffly starched flounces, two muslin petticoats and finally the dress." As you can see, wearing a cage crinoline was a great deal lighter and offered more freedom in
movement. Another plus of the crinoline was that the corset did not have to be laced as tightly since the hoop was so wide, the waist appeared to be smaller than it measured.
Despite their popularity, there were some disadvantages to the cage crinolines. After their introduction, they became wider and wider. It became difficult for women to use public transportation or fit into carriages. Furniture could
be knocked over with the sweep of skirts and doorways were often difficult to negotiate. Seating at parties had to be altered, since women needed additional room for their skirts. The plain wire cage crinolines could catch on
carriages or other protrusions and cause the wearer to fall. Women who worked in china and glass factories caused problems when their wide skirts caused items to be swept from the shelves and be broken. A pottery in
England lost inventory worth 200 pounds in one year. Fire was also a great danger. Since some dress fabrics were highly flammable, the wide skirts could brush a fire grate and easily catch fire. The openwork of the crinoline
made it impossible to wrap the victim in order to extinguish the flames. Many magazines gave warnings to the wearer of crinolines about fires.
The hoops or cage crinolines were made from many different materials. Watchspring steel, whalebone, or metal ribs were held in place by fabric tapes. Some were just skeleton frames and others were full petticoats with the
circular ribs held in place by casings. There was one record of inflatable rubber tubes used to hold the shape of the crinoline. In 1856 there was a patent of a crinoline that was inflated by means of a bellows and in order for the
woman to sit down, she had to deflate it, and reinflate it with the bellows when she stood up. Another style employed gutta-percha which covered the rings so that the hoops were washable and did not rust when the rings got
wet.
Not only upper and middle class women wore hoops: ladies' maids, shop girls and women working in factories wore hoops as did women working in fields. There is also documentation of women wearing crinolines mountain
climbing. According to C. Willet and Phillis Cunnington in The History of Underclothes, 1859 Sheffield (a steel factory) produced wire for half a million crinolines each week. Since they were mass produced, the hoops were
inexpensive. Peterson's published an advertisement for hoops in 1861 and the price ranged from 50 cents to $2.00. (In 1991 dollars that would be $7.69 to $30.75.) Children's crinolines cost between $ .19 to $1.00 ($2.92 to
$15.37 in 1991 dollars).
There was much opposition to women wearing crinolines by men. According to Keri Geiger in The Civil War Lady, volume I, Number 1, the hoop kept men at a distance despite the flexibility of the skirts. Punch, an English
publication constantly criticized the wearing of crinolines. Both women wearing hoops and the hoops themselves were the subject of many exaggerated cartoons and jokes. Even though men did not seem to like the crinolines, but
were not above enjoying the sight of ladies' ankles or provocative stockings or petticoats.
In doing research for this article I found many items on hoops, their advantages and disavantages. I found many cartoons mocking the hoop both in Harper's New Monthly Magazine and Graham's Illustrated Magazine.
Graham's had a monthly column on hoops for several months in 1857. There were articles announcing the demise of the hoop, but it remained fashionable for almost ten years longer. There were stories of why the hoop should
not be worn and articles extoling the virtures of the hoop. I found a song excerpted from an October, 1857 Graham's Illustrated Magazine (It was also in the August, 1857 Harper's New Montly Magazine.). It seems to sum
up a description and attitude of crinolines.