Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait show an impressive French family of seven childre. We would guess they are about 4-16 years of age. We are not sure how to date it, but would guess the 1890s. One girl wears a bustle. Notice that she is standing. The studio was Cayol in Marseille.

The 19th century began with Empire dresses that fell straight down from the shoulders giving a narrow, elegant look. After mid-century just the opposite developed as it became fashionable for dresses to billow out. There were two approaches: crinolines and bustles. The idea was to spread out the skirt wider and more fully. The crinoline was a stiffened petticoat designed create a large expanded skirt(mid-19th century) Gradually more structured devices were developed, most famously the hoop skirt, essentialy a steel-hooped cage. The first crinoline was only a stiff fabric, commonly made of horsehair (crin) and cotton or linen. The stiffenedfabric was used in two ways, either to make underskirts or a dress lining. The use of crin led to the term crinoline. The crinoline were replace with the less involved, but more combrrsome hoop skirt (mid-1850s). As is often the case, crinolines and hoop skirts were a revival of the farthinggale (16th-17th century) and the panniers (18th century). A bustle iwas a related device. It was a kind of framework used to expand the fullness or support the drapery of the skirt. It was struftured at the back of the dress. The bustle appeared as the hoop skiert began to decline. We begin to see them (around 1870) The bustle were worn under the skirt at the back, just below the waistline. The function was to keep the dress skirt from dragging. Women's dresses at the time with the full skirts used alot of material And with heavy fabric there was considerable weight. This could pull the back of a skirt down and tend to flatten it. This meant that a woman's petticoated or crinolined skirt could lose its shape as theday wore on just voving around, but especilly when sitting down. Bustles were worn 1870s-80s, except for a short period (1878-82). The bustle continued to be seen in the 1890s and very early-1900s, but as commonly as the 80s. A skirt support was needed. A curve in the back of the skirt balance the curve of the bust in front. The bustle finally disappeared (1905). The long corset shaped the body sufficently so it protrudes behind meaning a bustle was no longer needed. These approaches were primarily for women because they were so impractical, but we do see some older girls and teenagers wearing them.

Created: 11:31 PM 2/2/2019
Last updated: 11:31 PM 2/2/2019