Quintessentially Victorian: the Crinoline

It is arguable that nothing is as quintessentially Victorian as the crinoline. You only need to see the silhouette of a woman wearing a crinoline to place her fashion in the Victorian period. Whilst the Georgian period went through a fad for ridiculously wide skirts, it is the 1850s and 60s that were the era of the hoop shaped skirt we call the crinoline.

The height of fashion in 1854

A balloon like skirt is so evidently impractical, how did such a garb come into being? The roots of the answer are found in that traditional essential garment for women down the centuries – the petticoat.

Much of the time people in earlier centuries were cold. There was no central heating, and a fire in the hearth doesn’t throw heat very far. The answer was to rug up with layers of clothing so as to insulate the wearer from the worst of the icy drafts and inclement weather.

Petticoats for Warmth

For women this meant wearing petticoats under their gown. Indeed, a white cotton petticoat was usually worn over the corset but next to the skin. The layer was a simple shape and unadorned, since it needed washing on a regular basis.

The satirical magazine "Punch"
loved to poke fun at the wildly impractical crinoline

On top of the cotton petticoat came a flannel one- again simple in shape but perhaps with some decoration. Interestingly, this layer wasn’t full length but stopped just above the knee. These two layers were considered basic for women not matter what their class.

Fashionable Lengths

Just as in the modern day hemlines rise and fall, in the Victorian period fashion was all to do with the width and silhouette of the skirt. However, wide skirts needed support to hold them out and show them off to best advantage. In the 1840s the solution was to stiffen the fabric of a petticoat. The cheapest way to do this was “cording” which was a process of threading string between concentric rings of stitching on a white petticoat.

Itchy and Scratchy

But as the decade progressed, the stiffness provided by cording was not sufficient to support the weight of ever-bigger skirts. This lead to a new innovation and fabric with horsehair woven in or a “Crin au Lin”. Stiff, spring, and light, an underskirt made in this fabric or a “Crinoline” could support a weighty skirt.

The diameter of some crinolines was a disabling 6 feet

Steel Cages (…a comment on women’s lives in general?)

Horsehair, however, is scratchy and to overcome this in 1856 the steel crinoline was invented. This consisted of steel hoops suspended by tapes. This formed a cage like structure that was considerably lighter (and less itchy) than the original horsehair item.

And finally….perhaps crinoline makers were in league with fabric manufacturers, because the cages themselves were relatively inexpensive (retailing at about a third of the purchase price of a gown) and yet required many yards of fabric to make a skirt to cover it.  

PS. Can you think of anything more quintessentially Victorian than a crinoline? Do leave a comment. 
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