The Problem of Crinolines
Every so often at a science fiction convention (hopefully they will be a thing again before too long) I run into a woman wearing a crinoline.
In most of society, it’s a trend that has been thankfully left in the past. But crinolines were incredibly popular from the 1850s until the mid 1860s, and still occasionally showed up through the 1880s. It wasn’t the first way to achieve a ridiculously large skirt. (One earlier attempt was panniers, which forced the wearer to turn sideways to go through doors, although the crinoline appears to descend more directly from the Spanish farthingale).
But the silhouette it created was considered elegant for a while and, furthermore, it wasn’t just upper class, wealthy women wearing crinolines…which sometimes reached a width of six yards! They were more comfortable than the previous way to achieve the effect, which was to wear tons of petticoats. but… Woman also liked large hoop skirts because they made it harder for men to…ya know. Because men have always been like that.
So, what kind of problems did these crinolines cause?
