In the reign of Louis XV. corsets were cut away on the hips and laced at the back, the long busks of wood or steel being only in the front; whalebone was used to stiffen the corset, which was sometimes made in two pieces and laced under the arms, and it was invariably supplied with shoulder-straps, and began in those days to take unto itself such rich materials as brocade and satin embroidered in gold chenille or silk. The Directoire period produced a classic zone worn outside the dress, a mode that soon gave place to the boneless corset, a fleeting fancy, for all costume worn in the time of Louis XVI. owes its greatest charm to the stays, the bodices being cut into long points and fitted tightly from bust to waist. In some instances these bodices were sewn on to the figure of the wearer after the stays had been laced to their extreme limit, and many of Hogarth's figures prove the influence of the very stiff stay, the figures being erect in an uncomfortable degree, for it is impossible to imagine any human creature achieving such excellence of carriage without considerable support from without, and some inconvenience from within.
In the later days of the eighteenth century greater comfort was granted, when the short-waisted dress prevailed, together with the most laudable ambition to copy the flowing elegance of the classic period. But the rule of ease did not obtain long, and in the early times of the nineteenth century the fashion of tight lacing was revived with enthusiasm, stays being composed of bars of iron and steel with the tops stiffly steeled so that the shoulder-straps might be dispensed with. Women suffered a craze for compression, until the sixth decade of the nineteenth century, when its influence was somewhat less essential by reason of the ubiquity of the crinoline, which gave a semblance of the small waist to the least slender.
The crinoline boasts as its great-great-grand-mother the farthingale or vertingale, which was worn in France in the reign of Henry II., when 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 Eugénie 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."
CHAPTER XVIII
OF CEREMONIAL AND BRIDAL DRESS
The rules and regulations of ceremonial dress are as exacting, if not as unalterable, as ever were those of the Medes and Persians. Kings and Emperors punctiliously observe the etiquette which frames them, so that every royal meeting or parting or festivity is attended in a carefully prescribed garb, and the Master of the Royal Wardrobe must be deeply and wisely versed in the history of the nations, and worthy to take a diploma in the first division of the Court of Costume.
His Majesty the King has a lynx eye; no item escapes his notice; and he gives as much attention to the details of everyday garb as to those of clothes for merry or solemn occasion. Unlike the Queen, he rules the fashions, and his wearing of a low hat or a high hat, in white or in brown, a tweed suit or a frock-coat, white boots or black ones, decides such question for the multitude when attending inaugurations, race meetings, and other social functions, and the Royal decisions are heralded forth in the press for public guidance.
At the recent coronation there was much discussion of the form and shape of the robes for the ladies, and the King, anxious to conciliate the strictest etiquette of yesterday with a nice sense of the fashionable exigencies of to-day, concerned himself with the shape of the bodice and trimming of the train. The results we may all remember, the deeply crimson velvet, the borders of miniver, and the license of the jewelled stomacher and the lace under-skirt; while the rank which is but the guinea's stamp found expression in the epaulette, the coronet, and the bars of fur. In truth, the coronation robe, even under its improved conditions, cannot conscientiously be described as becoming or comfortable. The only virtue that I can see in it is its ponderous simplicity, the details of which I will give—for the benefit of a future generation—in the pompous language of the official proclamation.