The Fashion Historian

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Another powerful lady painted by Gainsborough was Queen Charlotte, who posed for her portrait in 1781. Although the robe a la francaise had gone mostly out of style in everyday wear by the time this portrait was painted, it continued to be used for court dress. As the highest ranking lady of the court, naturally the queen would be painted in a court gown. The wealth of the monarchy is established in the delicacy and sumptuousness of the gown, which is made of white silk net shot through with gold and overlaid onto white silk. The difficulty of construction of net and lace made it an extremely expensive luxury item. To have an entire dress of net, and one that is shot through with gold, shows an enormous amount of wealth. But unlike many other court gowns, this one does not look heavy. Instead it seems to float around the body of the Queen, who clearly has no problem maneuvering in wide panniers and a long train. One of Reynolds’ pupils, James Northcote, described the grace of the painting saying “With what a graceful sweep she seems to move through the picture! ‘Tis actual motion, and done with such a light airy facility… The drapery was done in one night by Gainsborough and his nephew, Gainsborough Dupont; they sat up all night, and painted it by lamplight.” Queen Charlotte is represented as stylish, wealthy, and possessed with the natural grace to float through space just as her gown floats about her body. She seems to take on the role of a contemporary goddess, shimmering and in and out of focus as she walks.

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Other paintings by Gainsborough forgo any reference historic dress at all, instead focusing on the most in the moment fashions. His famous portrait of Lady Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, painted in 1783, caused a millinery sensation. The Duchess wears a white robe a l’anglaise tied with a turquoise sash, and a highly structured black hat is perched atop her hedgehog hairstyle. The hat was one of the Duchess’s own creations, featuring a wide brim and medium crown, perhaps taking inspiration from the cavalier hats worn in the early seventeenth century. The hat is relatively simple, only decorated with a few black ostrich feathers (the Duchess had popularized wearing ostrich feathers in tall hairstyles a few years earlier) and a band of white fabric around the bottom of the crown to match the dress. After the painting was displayed at the Royal Academy, women of style everywhere clamored for a “picture hat”, just like that worn by the Duchess of Devonshire. As it was her own creation, the Duchess’s hat had no official name, being referenced to as the picture hat until the Victorian period when it would gain the moniker of the Gainsborough hat. The picture hat started a new trend, and anyone who was anyone wore one. Through the nature of the construction of the picture hat, it only works well when it is worn with the fashionable hedgehog style, reinforcing its role as a top fashionable item.


In wearing a hat of her own creation in her portrait, the Duchess asserts herself as a trendsetter at the top of society. Aware of her own fashion influence, she probably knew that her hat would be copied, thus her wearing of it strengthens her position as the most stylish lady in England, able to influence every other woman of style. The Duchess also shows her creativity, as the hat was of her own design. She shows herself to be something of an artist, able to create new styles, as opposed to just a woman who went with whatever the current trends dictated. The Duchess also gains power through her ability to create her own hats and influence the fashion of women all over England. While the Duchess’s portrait by Reynolds associated her with the timeless beauty and wisdom of classical societies, her portrait by Gainsborough reinforced her position of power in contemporary society.

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Gainsborough’s work The Three Eldest Princesses from 1784 was commissioned by the Prince of Wales, and shows Princess Charlotte, Augusta, and Elizabeth, the eldest daughters of King George III. Gainsborough uses soft pastel colors, painting the princesses in pink, yellow, and turquoise. The princess in pink has pearls wrapped around her arms, separating her sleeves into puffs, much like the sleeves on the dress of Lady Sheffield, and is wrapped in a sheer shawl shot through with thin stripes of gold. The princess in yellow wears a sash of metallic fabric around her waist, and the princess in blue has golden fringe on her dress as well as gold stripes shot through her sleeves and her shawl. Overall it is a display of the wealth, which reflects on the wealth of the monarchy. The sumptuous and delicate fabrics show that the princesses are true royals- they do not work and can afford the most luxurious and delicate materials. Despite the wealth of the gowns, they are relatively simple in design, the only decoration being very subtle. This reflects on the modesty and good taste of the princesses, as well as represents the English style of dress which often looked down on the excess of French styles. In this painting, the three women are true representations of the proper English woman, and the English monarchy on the whole.

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Thomas Gainsborough was seen as Reynolds’ great rival and opposite. While Reynolds preferred to dress his subjects in classical dress, Gainsborough used a wide array of costumes and styles. Many of his most notable portraits show his sitters wearing the latest styles, showing them to be at the height of fashion. According to Aileen Ribeiro, “his letters tell us that he aimed in painting to make the heart dance and to portray ‘modern truth’” and that often made up dress detracted from the beauty of the portrait.


Gainsborough was not against incorporating elements of history into his sitters clothing, however, although the overall silhouette and style are very modern. In his portrait Sophia Charlotte, Lady Sheffield, painted in 1785, Lady Sheffield’s clothing is within the current fashions, but also adds a few historic touches which not only bring an element of the fantasy into the portrait but in fact heighten the fashionableness of the sitter, as elements of seventeenth century costume were often worked into the fashionable looks of the day.





Lady Sheffield wears a pale yellow silk robe a l’anglaise, very much in line with the fashionable style of the day. The robe a l’anglaise became the dominant style during the end of the eighteenth century, and was considerably simpler and less fussy than the robe a la francaise. The back was fitted, and the skirt was no longer held out by panniers but instead by soft round padding, giving an elegant and more natural silhouette. Lady Sheffield’s hair is frizzed in a horizontal style known as the hedgehog style, and her hat is a very fashionable pouf, most likely coming from a Paris marchandes de modes. There are also some elements of seventeenth century fashion, as seen in the soft Vandyke collar and appliqué on the underside of the brim of the hat, as well as the string of pearls dividing the sleeves into two puffs.


These elements of seventeenth century fashion only heighten Lady Sheffield’s status as fashionable, much like many fashionable people wear vintage clothing today. The pale yellow of the dress and simplicity of design and decoration are in line with the toned down fashions of the end of the eighteenth century. The richness of the fabric and decorations shows the wealth of the sitter, as well as her ability to purchase a hat from France. A Parisian hat furthers her role as fashionista, as Paris was the center of the fashion world in the eighteenth century and consequently those who were the most stylish dressed in the Parisian mode. Furthermore, Gainsborough sets his portrait at the edge of a small wooded area, as if Lady Sheffield had gone for a walk amongst nature, referencing Rousseauean ideals of communing with nature.

The 14th century is really when fashion began to pick up. The lower classes are beginning to try to imitated the upper classes so to keep some semblance of social order sumptuary laws are passed, dictating which classes can wear what. But then people began to modify their dress to get around the laws, and fashion really begins.

Hairstyles and headwear began to get more complex in the 14th century. Women could wear a wimple or head veil, or for outdoors activities a hood or hat similar to what a man might wear. Hair was parted in the center and styled into two long braids which could be coiled over the ear or draped forward in front of the ear and then brought back to the crown of the head. These 'dos could then be topped with a jeweled mesh cage or wire-framed net called a crespine.


An image from Bodleian Library MS Bodl. 264, a mid-fourteenth-century edition of the Romance of Alexander, showing an elaborate hairstyle.

A ladies wardrobe starts with a chemise, a simple linen garment which had a variety of necklines, from the low cut to the high necked. Her legs would be covered with hose with hose which came in a variety of colors and were secured above the knee with garters.


Detail of February from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1412. A lower class woman warms her legs, showing off her hose.

Now for the garment people would actually see. Fabric and therefore clothing was extremely expensive, so if you could afford to wear multiple layers you wanted to show that off. The main garment worn by women was the cotehardie, a tightly fitted gown with a low waistline and a wide, scooped neckline. The tight fit was achieved by buttons or lacing up the sides or front. To showcase your wealth with multiple layers of clothing, wealthier women wore a kirtle, a tight fitting garment, underneath their cotehardies. To show off the kirtle underneath cotehardies could be slit down the sides, or for unslit versions the kirtle could show at the neckline and cuffs.


Another image from Bodleian Library MS Bodl. 264, a mid-fourteenth-century edition of the Romance of Alexander. The woman, so romantically giving away her heart, wears a purple kirtle and green cotehardie.

The sleeves would end at the elbow have a sort of tail coming off of them, called a lappet (if the tail was made out of the extra fabric) or a tippet (if the tail was a separate piece of fabric attached to the sleeve). Gowns were long and dragged on the floor, another way to show off wealth. Because if your dress is that long it means you aren't working, just sitting around and looking pretty. Fitchets were slits made in the garment so that a lady could reach inside for her purse. Consider fitchets the precursor to the pocket, which wouldn't arrive for several more centuries.


Statue of Joan de la Tour from 1377. She wears a cotehardie with lappets, and has her hands tucked into her fitchets.

Another option for women was the sideless surcoat, a decorative overgown with enormously long armholes, making the gown basically sideless. The Church did not approve, calling these slits the windows to hell. As the century progressed the band of fabric in the middle became narrower and narrower. A plastron, a stiffened and highly decorated piece of fabric, could be added to the front and back of the garment for some pizazz. The sideless surcoat quickly moved to being a ceremonial garment, leaving the cotehardie as the main fashion choice for women.


Statue of Jean of Bourbon from 1364-1380. She wears a sideless surcoat with a plastron.

It's hard to know what shoes women wore, as their feet rarely show in images from the period. But when feet do show, women seem to be wearing pointy toed shoes similar to what men wore, called crackowes or poulaines.



Special thanks to Got Medieval, a fabulous history blog with a wealth of medieval images for me to kindly borrow (no but seriously, do you know how hard it is to find 1. Medieval images and 2. Medieval images with reliable date and source information?). Go visit it and see more medieval fashion! Also monkeys.

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In many of his portraits Reynolds took this referencing of classical deities a step further, portraying his sitter as a goddess or other classical being. His portrait Mrs. Hale as ‘Euphrosyne’ from 1766 casts the sitter as the Ancient Greek figure Euphrosyne, one of the Three Graces and the goddess of joy and good cheer. The Three Graces could often be found dancing together, an idea referenced by Reynolds by the background figures playing musical instruments. Once again almost all references to contemporary fashion are removed, the only remnant being the fitted nature of the top of the gown to the upper body and the wide scooped neckline. Mrs. Hale steps lightly forward in the painting, her foot elegantly outstretched in a dancelike pose. The figures immediately around her dance to the music they are creating, as well as the very small figures on the field in the background of the painting. The scene is set on rolling hills, with most of the background being the sky. All of this suggests Mrs. Hale delighting in a dance through nature, springing lightly over hills and fields and enjoying the wind in her hair, her happy commune with nature reflecting the Rousseauean ideals popular in the period. By casting Mrs. Hale as Euphrosyne, Reynolds suggests that she has all the qualities of this goddess- she spreads joy and good cheer everywhere she goes.




Other references to classical deities are more serious. Reynolds’ portrait Lady Talbot, painted in 1781, shows a much more academic bent. While Mrs. Hale is associated with a goddess of joy and happiness, Lady Talbot is associated with Athena, goddess of wisdom, learning, and the arts. She wears a simple Grecian dress, and has just poured an offering of oil to the statue of Athena in the background. Her dress and action suggests that she is a disciple of Athena, dedicated to knowledge and wisdom. Rather than showing herself to be a slave to the frivolities of fashion, Lady Talbot shows herself as an intelligent and learned woman who is more interested in cultivating her mind than her wardrobe, as seen by the simplicity of her draped garment, and associates with the great minds of the ancient world.

As a lady of fashion in the 1830s, one must keep up with the latest trends. And nowadays that means really huge enormous big sleeves.



Big sleeves began to come into fashion in the late 1820s, but really hit their stride in the 1830s. Called leg-of-mutton or gigot sleeves (the French translation of leg-of-mutton), they started slightly off the shoulder and puffed out before narrowing again towards the lower arm. In combination with the popular V-neckline and full skirt, gigot sleeves helped to give an illusion of a narrower waist.


From the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Unlike the big sleeves of the 1890s, gigot sleeves did not start directly where the sleeve and shoulder of the dress met. Instead, gigot sleeves began at the top of the arm, helping to create a fashionable sloped shoulder look. The most beautiful lady in the 1830s would have shoulders not extending in a horizontal line from the base of her neck, but sloping in a gentle diagonal down to her arms. This ideal was connected with the romanticism movement popular during the period, making a woman look as though she were pining away for a lover.

Sleeves were cut on the bias of the fabric. Imagine you have a square piece of fabric in front of you. The threads which make up the fabric go horizontally (the weft) and vertically (the warp). If you were to place a pattern diagonally on that piece of fabric, so that it made a diagonal across the warp and weft, that would be cut on the bias. Fabric cut on the bias has greater stretch and movement, allowing for softer curves. But a lot of fabric and a bias cut isn't going to make your sleeves stand out to poofy perfection.


From the LA County Museum of Art

What you need is a pair of sleeve plumpers, worn underneath the dress to help hold out the volume of the sleeves. Women could also use stiff lining on the inside of the sleeves to help keep up the volume.

Once you are armed with your gigot sleeves (BUH DUM CHING!!!), the only thing left to do is fine an equally fashionable man and go showing off to all your friends.

I recently stumbled upon this fabulous portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), painted in 1717.



Detail of portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu by Jean Baptiste Vanmour

Lady Mary is a fascinating historic character, she traveled through and wrote extensively on Turkey, helped bring the smallpox vaccination to England, and was at one point engaged to a man with the greatest name in the history of the world- Clotworthy Skeffington (who looks exactly how his name sounds). She also seems to be a fashion psychic.

When Lady Mary's husband was appointed ambassador to Istanbul, she took the opportunity to absorb as much of this new culture as possible. When she did return to England, she brought a Turkish fashion sense with her which caused orientalist trends throughout Europe. Several of her portraits show her dressed in a Turkish or Turkish-esque style, attesting to her love for the exotic.

I find this particular portrait interesting due to it's contrast to the fashions of the day, which featured a natural waistline and a full skirt. This painting is from 1730, but gives you the general idea of the silhouette of the early 18th century.



Detail of A Tea Party at Lord Harrington's by C. Phillips from 1730.

Other portraits of Lady Mary in her Turkish garb show some nod to the fashionable silhouette of the day. The below portrait, for example, shows the full skirt and natural waistline featured in the fashions of the western world.




But Vanmour's portrait of Lady Mary shows her wearing a narrow dress with a waistline under the bust. I could not help but think of fashions from the Regency period, which would come about almost a century later.



Evening gown from 1814 featured in Ackerman's Repository of Arts

Lady Mary was a woman ahead of her time in many respects, but it also appears she was quite ahead of the trends in fashion!

Hope everyone has been enjoying the holidays!!

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Reynolds did not always reference contemporary fashion so directly in his draped garments. His portrait of Elizabeth Hamilton, Duchess of Hamilton and Argyll from 1758-9 shows no sign of the contemporary silhouette given by the fashionable robe a la francaise. The silhouette given by the robe a la francaise is the one most traditionally associated with the eighteenth century. The skirt extends in a wide horizontal from the waist, the shape given by panniers. The back of the dress is draped in double box pleats which creates a flowing cascade of fabric, seamlessly connecting the top of the outer robe to the bottom, called a sack back or Watteau back, as Watteau painted numerous ladies wearing gowns with this feature. A robe a la francaise takes at least eight yards of fabric to make, not including the fabric needed for trimming and decoration, and thus was an enormously expensive item of clothing. To feature one in a portrait would not only show the stylishness of the sitter but also her wealth, especially if her gown was highly decorated.

But like the Duchess of Devonshire, the Duchess of Hamilton and Argyll chose a classical look instead, even taking it one step further and removing all references to contemporary fashion altogether. Even her hair is classicized, hanging around her body in luxurious tendrils as opposed to being swept back and styled in an arrangement of curls as was the contemporary fashion. The only nod to contemporary styles at all is the coronation kirtle loosely draped around her, signifying her as a duchess. By removing almost all references to contemporary fashion, the Duchess becomes a figure of classical antiquity, implying that, like the statues of antiquity still admired today, the Duchess will be admired centuries later as well. While fashions come and go, Ancient Greece and Rome seem to always be in style and held up as the pinnacle of great art and society. The Duchess chooses to associate herself with those ideals, as opposed to being seen as a figure from her own time, and thus becomes a timeless beauty like the Venus de Milo. Reynolds strengthens this connection to classical beauties like Venus, having the Duchess lean on a plinth decorated with the scene of the Judgment of Paris, as well as placing two white doves to the side of the painting, both references to the goddess of beauty.

Left: Detail of Noble Couple by A. van den Tempel, late 17th century.
Right: Alexander McQueen Spring 2007 Ready to Wear.

OK, I'm cheating a little here. This is a paper I wrote for my 18th Century Art class. But I got a 100 on it so hopefully you will like it as much as my professor did! It's about 13 pages long, so I will be posting it in parts throughout the next few weeks.


Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote several discourses on painting, many of which addressed his views on how the sitter should be dressed. In his Seventh Discourse (1776), he supported his views that sitters should be dressed in classical drapery which evokes ancient Greece and Rome, describing these civilizations as “the fountains from whence have flowed all kinds of excellence… we voluntarily add our approbation of every ornament that belonged to them, even to the fashion of their dress.” He felt that contemporary dress was undignified, and while the clothing of his sitters often retained the general shapes and lines of contemporary dress, overall it has an “air of the antique”, as Reynolds called it.




His portrait Gerogiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire from c. 1775-6 shows the idea of a modern silhouette crossed with antique drapery. Although the dominant style of this time was still the robe a la francaise, the Duchess’s draped outfit carries a similar silhouette to the robe a la polonaise. The defining feature of the polonaise is the shape of the skirt, which is draped into three swags in the back, allowing the petticoat to be seen underneath. In Reynolds’ painting, the Duchess wears a gown with a fitted bodice, and an overskirt draped in swags, calling to mind the drapery of the polonaise. As the polonaise was still relatively new to the fashion scene, evoking this style allowed the Duchess to assert herself as the top fashionista, an idea heightened by her highly fashionable tall hairstyle. Additionally, Reynolds highlighted those features such as the neck and breasts that were considered the most beautiful and feminine in the period, giving promotion not only to the Duchess’s sense of style but to her personal beauty.

Despite all the elements of high fashion in his portrait, more prominent is the classicized view favored by Reynolds. The fabric of the Duchess’s draped gown has no luster, suggesting that it is not made of the highly fashionable silk taffeta or satin of the period, but a more simple material favored by the ancients. This aligns with Reynolds’ theory of fabric in historic painting, addressed in his Fifth Discourse (1772), where he writes “if the draperies were like cloth or silk of our manufacture, if the landskip had the appearance of a modern view, how ridiculous would Apollo appear instead of the sun, or an old Man with an Urn to represent a river or a lake.” The Duchess does not convey her wealth through the luxurious materials of her clothing, and instead reaches for the higher ideal of conveying a sense of timelessness. Her classicized dress and marble pale skin call to mind ancient statues of beautiful nymphs and goddesses, allowing the Duchess to take a rank amongst the great beauties that will never go out of style. The vague pastoral setting heightens this idea. By removing any references to modern architecture or other structures that would date the painting, the Duchess could be posing in any time and any place.

When Louis XIV came to the throne at the age of four in 1643, French kings had already begun the process of turning France into an absolutist state where the monarch was the absolute authority, his power coming from divine right. Throughout Louis' reign he continued transforming France, especially focusing on reigning in the aristocracy. Traditionally, the aristocracy held a great deal of power, and because France was such a vast territory they were not easily monitored. Aristocrats ruled over their lands like unofficial Kings, thus threatening the power of the actual monarch himself. Louis had several methods for dealing with the aristocracy, giving them privilege but not power. He moved the royal court to the palace at Versailles, and the aristocracy was constantly at court, vying for his royal favor and subsequently staying under his watchful eye.

A perfect example of this system of monitoring the aristocracy is red heels on shoes. Louis declared that only those in the royal favor were allowed the privilege of having red heels on their shoes, allowing everyone to show off when they were in favor. Red heels was like sitting at the popular kids table in school, only the very coolest kids could wear them.


Louis XIV, painted by Hyacinthe Rigaud in 1701.

Suddenly, if you fell out of the royal favor, everyone would know. It's bad enough to be out of the royal favor, it's even worse when you have to advertise it to the world. It was the perfect method for controlling a once unruly upper class. Aristocrats behaved themselves and they didn't have to face the shame of not having red heels on their shoes.


Louis XIV and his family, c. 1715-1720

Notice Louis' grandson, dressed in red and standing to the right. While Louis and his son (standing to the left) are wearing red heels on their shoes, his grandson is not, signaling that he was out of favor around the time this picture was created.

The connection between red heels and the monarchy lasted well past Louis XIV. In 1780 a pamphlet attacking Marie Antoinette was released, entitled Portefeuille d'un talon rouge (the wallet of a red heel). Red heels had become just one more symbol of the absolutist system that was beginning to tear the country apart.


Shoes by Christian Louboutin

Here are some fierce Christian Louboutin shoes. All Louboutin shoes have the inside of the heels and the sole painted red, perhaps a nod to the flashy cabaret girls that originally inspired the designer. For me, I always connect these modern red heels with Louis XIV. After all, wearing a pair of Louboutin shoes expresses the same ideals as wearing red heels in the 17th and 18th centuries- wealth, privilege, and a place in the choicest of social circles.

Welcome to a new feature of The Fashion Historian! One of my favorite things to do, and one of my favorite research topics, is finding historic influences in modern haute couture. So every so often I'll put up a picture of couture next to a period image. No lengthy explanations about what the influence is or why it was chosen or the social relevance, I'll just let the images speak for themselves and let you enjoy some beautiful creations.


Left: Fashion plate from 1897, taken from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.
Right: Dior Fall 2007 haute couture, designed by John Galliano.

Myth: Did some Victorian women really have their lower ribs removed in order to have a smaller waist?

Short Answer: No.

Long Answer:

The idea of using surgery to fix some unsatisfactory part of the physical appearance is extremely new. Unnecessary surgery is only possible with highly developed, modern surgical practices.

In the early 19th century, surgery was mainly confined to amputations and the removal of external problems. Anesthesia of any kind was first used around the 1840s, which allowed surgeons to start fixing internal problems. The risk of infection was also extremely high, with the germ theory of disease first being applied to surgery by Joseph Lister around the 1870s. However, it would take quite some time for surgery to become as sterile as we know it today. Instruments were beginning to be sterilized, but there were still plenty of ways for bacteria to enter the body. Antibiotics were only just starting to be discovered around the same time, but the science wouldn't really take off until the 20th century.


The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins, 1875
In the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Eakins' famous picture, The Gross Clinic, shows a typical Victorian surgical scene. The surgery is performed in an open auditorium with several spectators, and the doctors themselves are wearing street clothes and working with their bare hands. Even if the instruments were sterilized, it would still be extremely easy for an infection to take hold and the poor man being operated on to die.

If you survived all of that, there is still the pain that comes post surgery. Painkillers as we know them didn't really exist in the Victorian period, so for pain control a person had to turn to some sort of drug that was probably not very safe. For a point of comparison, remember when you had your wisdom teeth out? I recently had mine taken out, and even with my sophisticated, modern pain medication I was still pretty miserable for a few days afterwords. Now imagine an operation that didn't use modern surgical practices, and didn't involve modern painkillers to control post-operative pain.

No one in their right mind in the 19th century would voluntarily go under the knife unless it was absolutely necessary for their survival.



On the next episode of MythBusters: Fashion History Edition, underwear myths! Is it true that only lewd women wore underwear before the 20th century? Did Joan of Arc wear anything under all that armor? Find out soon! As always, if you have a myth you'd like to see busted, leave a comment and I'll research it!

As a sort of followup to my last head-to-toe post, where the cage crinoline was mentioned, I thought I'd write a bit about the social symbolism of the crinoline.



The cage crinoline first appeared in the mid 1850s and would continue to be popular until the 1870s, when it transformed into a bustle. At this time in history, women had very few rights and were generally second class citizens. They were seen as delicate, frivolous, submissive, and intellectually inferior to men. A woman was an ornament. They dressed in more colorful and decorative clothing (as opposed to men who wore dark, plain suits) to show off the wealth of either their fathers or their husbands. This stifling atmosphere did its best to confine a woman to the role of dutiful daughter and then dutiful wife, leaving little room for any other aspirations. You probably see where I'm going with this. Women were, metaphorically, caged by their society, just as their bodies were literally caged by a cage crinoline.


Modern fashion historians aren't the only ones who picked up on the idea of the cage crinoline as a literal cage. Here a cartoonist from the period shows how useful this cage can be for men.

Just as this was a period of female intellectual and social repression, it was also a period of sexual repression (although sexual repression was a hallmark of Victorian society as a whole, not just the women of the period). With the crinoline covering the lower half of the body, a woman's sexuality was literally in a cage, inaccessible to anyone except a husband. Interestingly, historically men weren't seen as the more sexual beings. Women were the sexually rapacious gender, and men were simply poor victims lured in by those pesky horny females. Thus the crinoline can be seen as a cage confining a woman's sexuality for the protection of men, just as one would put a ravenous animal in a cage for the protection of the people around it.

Interestingly, with all of it's symbols of female repression, many men thought the crinoline was incredibly stupid. It was way too big, taking up all of the room in carriages and making it that much harder to get close to a woman. Which leads to the other side of the social symbolism. In an increasingly industrialized society, cities were overcrowded and with any large city comes a large crime rate. Wearing a giant cage can be seen as a form of protection against the hundreds and thousands of suspicious strangers a woman might come into contact with walking down the street. Furthermore, caging a woman's sexuality can be seen from another angle. By putting her genitals behind a cage, a woman is at least symbolically protecting herself from sexual predators.

In addition to this social protection, the cage crinoline offered health benefits as well. Before it's invention, women achieved the fashionable wide-skirted silhouette by wearing many layers of heavy petticoats. This was not only uncomfortable but unhealthy. The cage crinoline offered a much better alternative. It was much lighter, wasn't nearly as hot as wearing multiple layers of cloth, and allowed for a greater range of movement. So on the one hand it symbolized female repression, but on the other it provided a sort of female liberation.



I'm no expert on gender studies, but these are just some of my thoughts on the possible symbolism of the cage crinoline. What do you all think? Is it a greater symbol of repression? Of liberation? A combination of both? Let me hear your thoughts!