The Crinoline and Corset

Crinoline

The original Crinoline was a horse hair mixed with linen fabric that kept it’s stiffness to keep the desired shape of the skirt. This fashion began in the 1830’s and as the decade wore on more and more layers and pleating styles were used to give extra fullness to the skirts. As well as these different techniques more and more petticoats were being worn to support the growth of the skirt making the garment extremely heavy and stiflingly hot in the summer. Soon for fashion and decency it was considered essential to wear a minimum of six petticoats.

These numbers of layer of fabric would have made moving around difficult and restricted due to the sheer weight of the garment.

In 1865 the hooped petticoat was introduced and took on the name Crinoline. This freed up the weighed down women by having such a stiff structure underneath that only one petticoat needed to be worn to protect themselves from the hard structure of the crinoline. Now the frame was lighters gusts of wind were known to catch the crinoline making it essential for the women to wear new long drawers as underwear.

Though this new structure was lighter the women’s movement was still massively restricted. The dresses were so large that no one could get very close to them and being a stiff structure sitting down became impossible. They were known to cause damage and breakages when moving around some shops making them a bit of a hazard. But still the cage crinoline was widely embraced and reached even the lowest of classes.

It was still essentially a cage restricting women.

Corset

After 1840 the corset was made in a new style constructed from seven to thirteen separate pieces. There were gusseted reinforces stitched corsets made of strong white cotton which used vertical rows of whale bone shaped to the natural body. These were still laced at the back.

Now that the evening dresses had such a low cut with the shoulders exposed corsets could no longer have shoulders straps.  With the dress bodices gaining in length and having some of their own inbuilt boning this gave not only extra shape but also helped to stop the body fabric from creasing.

There was still a massive emphasis on tiny waists and many women went to great lengths such as sleeping in their laced up corsets to get the fashionable shape. With the corsets and bodices getting longer and being combined with the new cage crinoline it would have further restricted their movement. As mentioned before sitting and probably bending over would have been near impossible.