The bustle is not only objectionable in itself as a hideous deformity
and a revival of Hottentot taste, but still more as a probable
forerunner of that most unutterably vulgar article of dress ever
invented by Fashion—the crinoline. For we read that when, in 1856, the
crinoline came in again, it was preceded by the “inelegant bustle in the
upper part of the skirt”; and it is a notorious fact that cunning
milliners are making strenuous efforts every year to reintroduce the
crinoline.
In their abhorrence of the crinoline men do not stand alone. There are
several refined women to-day who would absolutely refuse to submit to
the tyranny of Fashion if it should again prescribe the crinoline. One
of these is evidently Mrs. Haweis, who in _The Art of Beauty_ remarks
that “The crinoline superseded all our _attention to posture_; whilst
our long trains, which can hardly look inelegant [?] even on clumsy
persons, make small ankles or thick ones a matter of little moment. We
have become inexpressibly slovenly. We no longer study how to walk,
perhaps the most difficult of all actions to do gracefully. Our
fashionable women stride and loll in open defiance of elegance,” etc.
And again: “This gown in outline simply looks _like a very ill-shaped
wine-glass upside down_. The wide crinoline entirely _conceals every
natural grace of attitude_.”
Another lady, writing in the _Atlantic Monthly_ (1859), remarks
concerning the crinoline: “A woman in this rig hangs in her skirts _like
a clapper in a bell_; and I never meet one without being tempted to take
her by the neck and ring her.”
About 1710, says a writer in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, “as if
resolved that their figures should rival their heads in extravagance,
they introduced the hooped petticoat, at first worn in such a manner as
to give to the person of the wearer below her very tightly-laced waist a
contour _resembling the letter V inverted_—ʌ. The hooped dresses, thus
introduced, about 1740 attained to an enormous expansion; and being worn
at their full circumference immediately below the waist, they in many
ways emulated the most outrageous of the fardingales of the Elizabethan
period.”
“About 1744 hoops are mentioned as so extravagant,” says Chambers’s
_Encyclopædia_, “that _a woman occupied the space of six men_.” George
IV. had the good taste to abolish them by royal command, but they were
revived in 1856. The newspapers of two decades ago daily contained
accounts of accidents due to the idiotic crinoline. “The _Spectator_
dealt out much cutting, though playful, raillery at the hoops of his
day, but apparently with little effect; and equally unavailing are the
satires of _Punch_ and other caricaturists of the present time against
the hideous fashion of crinoline.... Owing to its prevalence,
church-pews that formerly held seven are now let for six, and yet feel
rather crowded. The hoops are sometimes made with a _circumference of
four or even five yards_.”
It is universally admitted that the human form, in its perfection, is
Nature’s _chef d’œuvre_—the most finished specimen of her
workmanship. Yet the accounts of savage taste given by travellers and
anthropologists show that the savage is never satisfied with the human
outlines as God made them, but constantly mars and mutilates them by
altering the shape of the head, piercing the nose, filing or colouring
the teeth, enlarging the lips to enormous dimensions, favouring an
adipose bustle, etc. This is precisely what modern Fashion, the handmaid
of ugliness, does. We have just seen how fashionable women, unable to
comprehend the beauty of the human form, have for several generations
endeavoured to give it the shape of “a very ill-shaped wine-glass,
upside down,” “a clapper in a bell,” or “the letter V inverted.” And
concerning Queen Elizabeth the _Atlantic_ writer already quoted says
very pithily: “What with stomachers and pointed waist and fardingale,
and sticking in here and sticking out there, and ruffs and cuffs, and
ouches and jewels and puckers, she looks _like a hideous flying insect_
with expanded wings, seen through a microscope—not at all like a woman.”
Fortunately, for the moment, the crinoline, like the fardingale, is not
“in fashion.” But, as already stated, there is considerable danger of a
new invasion every year; and, should Fashion proclaim its edict, no
doubt the vast majority of women would follow, as they did a decade or
two ago. In the interest of good taste, as of common sense, it is
therefore necessary to speak with brutal frankness on this subject.
There is good evidence to show that the crinoline originated in the
desire of an aristocratic dame of low moral principles to conceal the
evidences of a crime. Hence the original French name for the
crinoline—_Cache-Bâtard_. Will respectable and refined women consent
once more to have the fashion set for them by a courtesan?