Delaware State journal and statesman., 1865-01-17
THE HISTORY OF cR1NoLINE.

I
A book has recently been published IN
London, entitled "Crinoline In the Parks
and Promenades, from III no to IS64i'
In review of the work, the London
! Spectator says g4a4 eaA .i-s5 -fa.is
Crnoline has now lasted eleven years,
in spite of denunciations from artists,
clergymen, and all men who have to pay
for women's dresses, or suffer by the made
quate dimensions of modern carriages,
and there seems no reasons why it should
not last until the end of the century,
When the Empress Eugenie, in her wish
to conceal that she had attained the goal
of her ambition, reinHoduced the fashion,
it was treated as one altogether new and
temporary, but the truth is that the ball
dress is the normal English fashion, and
the scant skirt a rare and temporary 10 !
noVstion. - Crinoline," in its trade sense.
did not last twelve msRths,a the material
so called, which is simply bad muslin, glVa
Ing way at once to the thin steel hoop,
but in its conventional sense it has lasted
under different names, nearly three hun,
dred years. There is, in fact, principle,
or we should rather say All impulse, be,
meath all very radical changes Of fashion.
Mems dress is effected materially by al,
terations Of political feeling, the present
tendency, amidst many small changes, be-
ing obviously towards equality Of caste
a teadency'so strong that the use of any
thing very conspicuous, Of costly eolors,
and, in less degree, of a costly material,
is voted decidedly snObbish. A duke
dare not walk down piccadilly dressed
in cloth of gold, or even in the dress in
which Mr.. Coghlan plays Sir Cara3oo at
the Olympic, though, as if to point out the
reason of the change, he might wear that
very dress, minus the gold.lace frogs,
without further notice than suspicion
that he was an artist vain Of bis pursuit.
Politics do not often affect women's
dress, though the French Revolution, with
its false tone of clnssieality revived the,
habit of s.ripping--carried so far sixty
years previous that Miss Chudleigh re-
ceiyed one morning after her appearance
at State ball, fig leaf as mild hint
but a theory Of dress does. For three
centuries the notion has heen TO drape
the female figure so as to show the bust
and leave the trunk and limbs completely
concealed, notion interrupted at inter-
walls by the more artistic idea that the OBJ
ject OF the dress is to reveal while con
eealing. Each fashion has been in turn
advocated and denounced on the score Of
decency, and old gentleman whose wives
wore no fuckers, and who quite approved
ofa fashion which left the gown as tightas
u wet bath dress. now being loud on the
impropriety of showing the ankles, which,
again, century ago, were as little with
in or without the limits Of "proper re-
serve" US the wrists now are. Each fash
ion also has been praised by men on ac-
count Of its convenience, and each by
turns has seemed to the next generation
almost inexplicably lndicrous, people now
laughing at the high waists and tight
dresses Of 1900 as the danes Of that day
laughed at the stately, bell like forms of
l7lU, OF as the halfnude women of 1900
will ridicue the encumbeTed figure Of
1864. .H.t.. .tt.-
On the whole, and over long course
of years, the wide drapery had carried the
day, for the simple reasons that the sex
which has to wear it likesit best ofthe two.
The tight dress might be all very, we'll for
girls Of twenty-five, just in their maturity
Of form, but only one fifth of womanhood
was at any one time of the fitting age, and
one-half even of that fifth would have
preferred some possibility Of padding,
The tight dress, too, for bad Walking with
speed, or sitting With comfort, or standing
without formality, or renjoying the Injury,
once so outre, Of crossing the legs at will,
and required above all dresses the aid Of
tight lacing a practice which, pace the
testers, no woman ever honestly liked.
Crinolinen therefore prevailed Whenever
II got fair chance, and from Queen Eliza.
beth's farthingale for more than three
hundred years, maintained a broken rule,
It fell every now and then under the in
huence of continental fashion, but il re-
yived in 1910, when the book before Us
takes up the tale. .+5, 50 sj,',
The book is an advertisment simply,
but one Of a costly and unusual kind.
Mr.. Il. Philpott, "jupon manufacture, y y
which means, we suppose, in English,
maker of women's petticoats, thinks he
! has made such articles Of unmatched
H .I