Farthingale
A farthingale is one of several structures used under Western European women's clothing - especially in the 16th and 17th centuries - to support the skirts in the desired shape and to enlarge the lower half of the body.
[2] The earliest images of Spanish farthingales show hoops prominently displayed on the outer surfaces of skirts, although later they merely provided shape to the overskirt.
In March 1519 at a masque at Greenwich Palace female dancers in fanciful "Egyptian" costumes wore black velvet gowns "with hoops from the waist downwards", which may have been farthingales.
[10] At a dinner for French diplomats in May 1559, the farthingales of Elizabeth I and her ladies took up so much space that some women of her privy chamber had to sit on the rush-covered floor.
[11] A chest of costume for drama at King's College, Cambridge, in 1554 contained some items fashioned from disused vestments, including two pieces of blue silk which were "tranposyd to wardyngalis" with a pair of sleeves.
[24] Here are a couple of sample references to rolls from Queen Elizabeth I's Wardrobe Accounts (MS Egerton 2806): There are no extant examples of this style of undergarment, and only one illustration, a satirical Dutch engraving of c. 1600, that shows the bum-roll being affixed by a tiring-woman.
Although there are also no surviving examples of this type of garment, there are a number of references to a "Great Farthingale" in Queen Elizabeth I's wardrobe accounts during the time when this style was in vogue.
Changes in the shape of the farthingale impacted the construction of other garments including the "forepart", the exposed front or apron of the skirt or kirtle made from richer fabrics.
[26] The great farthingale appears to have been worn at an angle ("low before and high behind") which visually elongated the wearer's torso while shortening her legs.
Instead they claim that the seemingly enormous size of these garments was an optical illusion created by wearing it with a pair of bodies (corset) that elongated and streamlined the torso.
Criticisms of farthingales are also indicative of spatial anxieties relating to fears about these garments creating intimate personal spaces around the female body, masking the appropriation of social status, and physically displacing men.
[28] Robert Naunton thought that Anne's farthingale might conceal a pregnancy in October 1605, writing, "The Queen is generally held to be pregnant, but no appearance eminent by reason of the short vardugals in use".
[29] During celebrations in London in 1613 at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V of the Palatinate, it was said that women wearing farthingales were not admitted to crowded events to save space.
[31] In June 1617 Leonora, Lady Bennet's large English farthingale drew unwelcome attention from a crowd in the streets of Amsterdam.
[32] In December 1617 the Venetian ambassador Piero Contarini was surprised by the size of Anne of Denmark's farthingale which was four feet wide at the hips.
[37] An account from William Jones for making a gown for Queen Elizabeth includes "a payer of vardingall sleves of holland cloth bented with whals bone and covered with riben.
[40] A Welsh MP William Maurice asked a Shrewsbury tailor to provide a French bodice with farthingale sleeves for his young daughter or cousin in 1594.
[41] Farthingale sleeves for Catherine Fenton Boyle cost 4 shillings and 4 pence in October 1604 from Robert Dobson, a London tailor.
[48] These were probably used for pinning deep tucks in fathingales to hold whalebone supports, and to position heavy silk skirts in place over the farthingale.
