Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/256

210 it is described as a cage put on beneath the petticoat to inflate it to extravagant extent. It was, however, in the days of Elizabeth that the farthingale reached its apogee, and according to Sir Roger de Coverley made its wearers look as if they were "standing in a drum." Early in Charles I.'s reign it went out of fashion, and when Catherine of Braganza and her Portuguese ladies wore it on coming to London for her marriage with Charles II., the anachronism attracted crowds of amused spectators. The farthingale, in fact, had become obsolete, to reappear, however, in the somewhat more convenient form of the hooped petticoat which swelled in the reign of Anne. The contour of this was very slightly altered in the reign of George I., the sides being more curved at the front and the back, and the old shape of the circular farthingale was. preferred with the trainless gown. 1796 is the date given when hoops were discarded except at Court, and the real crinoline made its appearance in 1854, the previous year having witnessed the crinoline petticoat as an ordinary adjunct to dress. The Empress Eugenie pronounced in favour of the crinoline, and it became the mode, remaining so for many years, while those few who refused to give it patronage gave hostages to fashion in the horsehair-stiffened petticoat. The crinoline in those days was of the skeleton kind and formed of hoops of steel held together by perpendicular tapes, but it soon developed into a petticoat of calico with the steels running through it at intervals from hem to waist. It is amongst the fashions over which even the most pessimistic may hopefully write "Ichabod."