The Crinoline Crisis: Steel-Cage Skirts Replace the Need for Tight Lacing
Poet involved
What happened
The invention of the steel-cage crinoline in London in the mid-1850s temporarily reduced pressure on Victorian women's waists by supporting enormous skirt volume without requiring extreme tight-lacing. Manufactured by firms including Thomson & Co. in Britain, the crinoline spread rapidly through the middle and working classes because it was cheaper than layers of petticoats. However, the crinolines were dangerously flammable and caused numerous deaths, making them a subject of public satire and moral debate in London, Paris, and New York.
Literary impact
The crinoline's absurdity and danger attracted sustained satirical verse in periodicals including Punch, while serious poets like Christina Rossetti engaged with the simultaneously decorative and constrained lives of women in this era. The image of the crinoline — enormous circumference, fragile structure — became a metaphor in literary writing for the expansion and precariousness of Victorian women's social aspirations. Rossetti's Goblin Market (1862) appeared at the height of the crinoline age and subtly explored female embodiment and desire.
Source: Wikipedia
