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What Was Up With Those Giant Victorian Skirts?
May 2, 2025
Crinolines put the hoop in the Victorian-era skirt. For two decades, women wore crinolines - lightweight cages attached to their waists - under their clothing to create a wide, bell-shaped silhouette. Thanks to crinolines, hoop skirts may be the most iconic and defining piece of fashion from the 1800s.
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TV, movies, and pop culture have a serious thing
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for the Victorian era. There's just something about the time frame that captures
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our collective imaginations. The Victorian age saw Britain's first experiences with heavy industry, significant scientific breakthroughs
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and a ton of classic literature. It's no surprise that many of us are fascinated by this time
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But it wasn't all industrial revolutions and new scientific ideas. Some rather peculiar Victorian fashion trends
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took Britain by storm. Today, we're looking at the sartorial history of the billowing Victorian skirts, known as crinolines
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A crinoline is a stiffer structured petticoat designed to hold out a woman's skirt
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For Victorian women, crinolines were the height of fashion. But they were also kind of dangerous
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Like 1970s upholstered furniture, everything about crinolines screamed, fire hazard. They were layered with highly flammable materials
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like bobbinet, cotton muslin, gauze, and tarlatan. On top of that, the dresses were huge
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and being exposed to a single spark could ignite such a fashion Hindenburg
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Since the dresses were basically cages around a woman's waist, they could also trap her and prevent her
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from escaping a flaming fashion. Experts estimate that about 3,000 deaths were caused directly by crinoline fires or related issues
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In 1861, American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's wife, Fanny, died in a crinoline fire
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A decade later, two of Oscar Wilde's half sisters suffered the same fate when their skirts caught fire at a ball
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It wasn't just happening in England, either. The New York Times first reported on crinoline deaths
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in 1858, after a Boston woman burned to death when her dress caught fire at home
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Her guests, impeded by their own crinolines, helplessly watched her burn. Well, that is one way to end a dinner party
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A short time later, nine ballerinas suffered a similar outcome at the Continental Theater
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in Philadelphia. Reacting to this strange problem, the Ladies Magazine encouraged households
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to install fire blankets in their parlors to help prevent spontaneous dress fires
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Imagine wearing a flammable dress to show off your status. That girl is on fire
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No, seriously, she's actually on fire. Just because a piece of clothing is popular doesn't mean it's comfortable
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Crinolines were supposed to be fancy and comfortable, but were actually quite the opposite
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The dresses were bulky, uncomfortable, and very awkward. Manufacturers, however, insisted crinolines allowed better mobility
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The frames are lightweight and flexible they reasoned so it should be no problem to move around freely They also claimed the wires would compress when moving through doorways This was not the case
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In fact, wearing crinolines posed some unique problems. Women who wore them commonly found themselves
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getting stuck in narrow passages and doorways. Female factory workers might have their dress
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get caught in a machine. The awkwardness and discomfort didn't stop there
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Sometimes women would catch their dresses in wagon wheels or even be blown over by the wind
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A fall can make the skirt lift up and reveal the wearer's legs, which was probably the most embarrassing thing
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that can happen in Victorian England. Oh my goodness gracious! The legendary Florence Nightingale even wrote about such events
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in her 1859 book, Notes on Nursing, saying, I wish that people who wear crinoline could see the indecency
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of their own dress as other people see it. A respectable elderly woman stooping forward
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invested in crinoline exposes quite as much of her own person to the patient lying in the room, as any opera dancer does on stage
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But no one will ever tell her this unpleasant truth. Florence makes a valid point
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We all need a friend who'd say no when we want to wear a six-foot-wide dress on a date
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I know I do. Crinolines themselves were a framework below the skirt that supported the heavy fabric above
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The massive dresses the crinoline supported dwarfed the woman inside. They were designed that way
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The 19th century had a belief that women were basically frail and weak, or delicate and precious, depending on how you view it
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If women were strong enough to support layers of skirts, they wouldn't need a steel or whalebone cage to do the job for them
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Crinolines actually perpetuated such beliefs. Reports from the time all find that confining dresses made women more likely to experience fainting, headaches, and vaguely defined hysteria
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Apparently, no one thought that might be caused by being a prisoner in your own dress
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Unlike the breezy, moisture-wicking technology we have today, underwear was stiff and heavy in the mid-1800s
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Women typically wore several layers of undergarments to achieve a broad, round silhouette
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These were usually hot and uncomfortable, especially in an era with no air conditioning
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When the much lighter crinolines arrived, women happily adopted them as a replacement
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for the period's unwieldy undies. Since the cages lifted the fabric away from the wearer
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crinolines provided a cooling effect and a desirable round shape. That didn't stop folks from criticizing them
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This provoked a strong response from women who actually found them more comfortable than, say
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layers of stiff undergarments. In a historical account from the book, Corsets and Crinolines in Illustrated History one Victorian woman defended the garment against mostly male critics Now it is the crinoline which draws forth her indignant outcries They know not from their own experience
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how the crinoline relieves us from the weight of many underskirts and prevents them
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from clinging to us while walking. And they have never felt the comfortable support
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of a well-made corset. During the Victorian era, the hourglass shape was becoming a popular ideal of womanhood
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Before crinolines appeared, women wore whalebone corsets. These were heavy and harmful, which
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helped facilitate the crinoline's popularity. Following its introduction, blooming dresses and crinolines were all the rage
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Unfortunately, they had the damaging side effect of confining women. The wire cages also made physical intimacy impossible
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while the dress surrounded the wearer. The bulk and size of the skirts further
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limited a woman's physical activities. Historian Gail Fisher later asserted the dresses
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seemed to emphasize femininity and female powerlessness. On the plus side, crinolines gave women more personal space
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It might seem weird that something so restricting could create a more intimate space, but it did
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The broad, circular skirts made it harder for others to get close. This created a space which defined a woman's boundaries
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Per fashion and consumer sciences professor Celia Stahl Meadows, crinolines acted as a power extender
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by allowing a generally powerless woman to increase her personal space. Scholar Rebecca N. Mitchell agrees
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stating that wearing one could be a defiant act that gave women more agency and control over their bodies
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Maybe the best use of crinolines was in fighting crime. Billowing skirts allowed women to conceal valuables
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and prevent robberies on the street. No problem here, officer. I'm wearing a comically large dress
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The sewing machine had been around for a while by the time crinolines were developed, first patented around 1755 to Charles Wiesenthal
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The German man received a British patent for a needle that is designed for a machine
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The cabinet maker, named Thomas Saint, created the first detailed sewing machine design in 1790
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Several other inventors played with the concept for the early part of the 19th century
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with varying degrees of success. Enter Isaac Singer, international man of the sewing machine
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and prolific father of 24 children. After patenting his Singer sewing machine in 1851
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clothing production took off. Singer's machine was considered the most practical of the existing models at the time
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Better technology meant more fabric could be used to make clothes. This resulted in bigger, wider, and grander skirts
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With dresses becoming more massive the crinoline distributed the fabric weight It also allowed better leg movement no more getting tangled in petticoats and underskirts If only they weren so flammable
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Clothing always acts as a symbol of class. Crinolines became popular among both the royalty
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and the working classes. This resulted in some severe anxiety for the era's critics
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I'm not loving it, that's for sure. The moralists of the period disliked them the most because it all comes down to the ankles
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Women often lifted the front of these large dresses while walking or climbing stairs
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This exposed their ankles, which in turn deeply concerned critics. What a bunch of bulls**t. Bulls**t
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Showing ankles was too provocative, it was thought, and occasionally led to the more deviant behavior of exposing a woman's legs
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Women who wore crinolines were often considered vain or opulent for their skirts
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A satirical magazine from the era called Punch routinely mocked the fashion, even naming the
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trend as crinoline mania. Their critiques emphasized weakness in the way women choose
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their clothes. The magazine suggested the popularity of crinolines meant women didn't
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know how to make sensible purchases. Punch recommended an alternate use for discarded
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crinolines as plant protectors during the winter. Disdain for crinolines became a worldwide trend
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A Tasmanian newspaper called them tasteless, extravagant, and inconvenient in 1859. An English poet named John Close wrote a satirical verse
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about them, claiming women could scarcely squeeze into a single room. There was even a political cartoon at one point
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But it wasn't criticism that ultimately killed the crinoline. We can blame that on one technology
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Nothing lasts forever. However, tastes inevitably change and fashions fade away. Ultimately, crinolines were too bulky and dangerous
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to deal with all the time. In 1866, interest in crinolines began a slow and sad fade
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And by 1868, women were downsizing. They moved from regular crinolines to smaller crinolettes that ballooned towards the back
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Instead of a bell shape, they only had hoops around the backside. It enhanced the badunka-dunk
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These half crinolines led to more popular garments like the polonaise and the bustle
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Ultimately, crinolines were an uncomfortable, flammable mess that came to define women's fashion in the Victorian era
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The big steel-wired horrors of the time eventually faded away. But versions of the crinoline survive to this day
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Crinoline gained popularity during World War I and had a brief resurgence after World War II
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They're even used in some formal events today. Fashion that's on fire. Fun
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