Abstract
The paper discusses the crinoline dress and the main materials used for women's fashion in the 1860s. The paper explains that the Civil War in the United States influenced fashion due to the scarcity and high cost of materials, and the necessity of women to dress more practically and have more mobility. The paper further relates that the women's magazine, Godey's Lady's Book, was a major influence on fashion and style. The paper shows how fashion-consciousness was as important 140 years ago as it is today.

From the Paper
"The crinoline dress is probably the style most associated with women's fashion at the height of the Victorian era. This type of dress was well established among the women of high society in both England and the United States by the 1850s, and continued to develop throughout the 1860s. It consisted of a skirt with a greatly exaggerated circumference, reaching up to six feet in diameter in its heyday. The predecessors to the crinoline achieved girth by the wearing of multiple petticoats under the skirt, but this proved ineffective. The first crinolines were supported by heavy and brittle round whalebone and, later, bendable brass. Neither material was ideal, however, and by the 1860s, flattened steel wire, or "hoops" as it was known in the U.S., was being used."

Tags:crinoline, dress, calico, Godey's, Lady's, Book, Civil, War

Abstract
This paper presents an examination of the women's dress movement. It is a history of the changes in women's clothing over the years from the feminists who stopped wearing corsets to those who pioneered the acceptance of women wearing trousers in society. It changed forever the attitude that society had about women's obligation to look good regardless of the cost to comfort and health.

From the Paper
"The 1870's brought movement to change the undergarment instead of fighting society on the outer garment(Foster, 1984). "Emancipation Waists" were invented to give relief from the corset while still providing shape for the women who wore them. By the 1890's the crinoline was history and skirts began to drag on the ground. This became impossible to deal with as they picked up all sorts of trash, debris and dirt as they dragged. Instead of returning to the undergarments that had been so intrusive in the past the women of the nation began to shorten the skirts. Because health consciousness was in style the skirt becoming shorter was accepted more readily than it otherwise might have been.
With Amelia Bloomer's suggestion that the Turkish trouser would be more comfortable and the later acceptance of shorter skirts the dress reform movement was well underway and today women wear whatever they want to wear."

Tags:skirts, dress, corsets, petticoats, crinoline, trousers, fausion