Clothing Definitions — definitions of garments and clothing terms from Apparel Search
A hoop skirt or hoopskirt is a women's undergarment worn in various periods to hold the skirt extended into a fashionable shape. Hoop skirts typically consist of a fabric petticoat with casings to hold a stiffening material, variously rope, osiers, whalebone, steel or nylon. Lightweight hoop skirts, usually with nylon hoops, are worn today under very full-skirted wedding gowns. This page explains hoop skirt construction, and the family of related skirt supports: the farthingale of the sixteenth century, panniers of the eighteenth, and the crinoline and bustle of the nineteenth.
Hoop skirts typically consist of a fabric petticoat with casings to hold a stiffening material, variously rope, osiers, whalebone, steel or nylon.
Lightweight hoop skirts, ususally with nylon hoops, are worn today under very full-skirted wedding gowns.
See also:
Farthingale (sixteenth century)
Panniers (eighteenth century)
Crinoline (nineteenth century)
Bustle (nineteenth century)
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hoop_skirt). 1/6/06 |
The hoop skirt is the general name for a recurring solution: a light frame under a skirt holds the fabric out in the fashionable shape, so the silhouette comes from the support rather than from layers of heavy petticoats. The frame's shape changed with fashion. The farthingale of the sixteenth century held the skirt in a cone or a drum. Panniers in the eighteenth century extended the skirt sideways at the hips while leaving it flat at front and back. The crinoline of the nineteenth century, the direct ancestor most people picture, used hoops of steel in a bell shape, increasing in size toward the hem. The bustle then moved the projection to the back only. All four are hoop skirts in construction — casings in a fabric understructure holding a stiffening material — differing only in where the hoops push the skirt.
The materials tell the same story of lightening. Rope and osiers, willow cuttings, gave the earliest frames; whalebone made lighter, springier hoops; steel made the great crinolines possible at a fraction of the weight of layered petticoats; and nylon does the same job today at almost no weight. A modern wedding hoop is the crinoline reduced to essentials: two or three flexible nylon hoops in a plain petticoat, enough to hold a full skirt off the legs and let it move as one shape. Wearing any hoop skirt takes the same small skills — sitting by lifting the front hoops, passing through doors by compressing one side — because the garment is a frame, and the frame, not the dress fabric, is what occupies the space.
Under an ordinary dress the hoop skirt also did practical work: it kept heavy skirt fabric off the legs, let air circulate in warm weather, and let a wide skirt be made from less fabric than the same silhouette built from layered petticoats, because the hoops, not yardage, created the volume. That economy of material, repeated at every period from the farthingale to the wedding hoop, is why frame supports kept replacing petticoat layers whenever a wide skirt came into fashion.
A hoop skirt or hoopskirt is a women's undergarment worn in various periods to hold the skirt extended into a fashionable shape.
Hoop skirts typically consist of a fabric petticoat with casings to hold a stiffening material, variously rope, osiers, whalebone, steel or nylon.
Yes. Lightweight hoop skirts, usually with nylon hoops, are worn today under very full-skirted wedding gowns.