1895 Outfit: Period Methods To Add Skirt Fullness, Part 3, Skirt Interlinings

Now that the Advent and Christmas seasons are over, it's time to take up the pen again -- okay, plop the keyboard on the lap again -- and continue with the articles about how fullness was added to skirts in the mid-1890s.

Here is the entirety of what has been published so far:

• Part 1, Fullness and Flare
• Part 2A, Petticoats with Crinoline, Ties, Bones, Wires!
• Part 2B: Petticoats Redux
  
• Part 3, Skirt Interlinings
• Part 4, Skirt Godet Plaits and Interior Ties
• Part 5, Steels, Rattan, Candlewicking, and Dust Ruffles
  
• We also have a tour of a heavy, lined, faced, and brush-braided 1890s skirt:  An Antique 1890s Black Skirt With Brush Braid In My Collection.
• If you're interested in the project's entirety, please see 1890s: Costumes, Research, Documentation.

The 1890s was also the age of heavy linings and interlinings. In some ways, the mid-1890s remind me of the Tudor era, when doublets were stiffened and stuffed and molded. Open any sewing guide of the decade and it will advise the use of stiffening in the form of a variety of interlinings to achieve the fashionable flare in the sleeves and skirt. Columnists had some humorous things to say about them and how they affected the women encased in them, as you'll read.

The use of skirt stiffenings and petticoats was interrelated: in general, we can say that if a skirt's material was too lightweight to admit of a heavy interlining, then the petticoat, or petticoats, would pick up the slack. If the skirt was heavier, it would become more likely that other expedients would be found to create the flare. Interlining a skirt was a key method.

Skirt Interlinings and Facings

The admonition to interline a skirt with something to give it the proper fullness -- or to do the opposite and NOT interline it -- was nearly incessant during the period.

As we have seen, if a skirt was of a very lightweight material, such as a cotton, or a light silk, a lining and interlining, would be omitted. Our old friend Isobel Mallon, the regular fashion columnist for The Ladies Home Journal magazine, wrote, "I have before this described the haircloth petticoat, the wearing of which makes it possible either to omit lining the cotton skirt, or the having a very soft, thin one." (July 1895, p. 21).

If the skirt was of wool, duck, serge, or any non-lightweight fabric, a lining would be standard, plus a facing, which is a small-scale stiffening, plus if needed, interlining. To repeat a quotation from the first article in this series, from The Elements of Modern Dressmaking for the Amateur and Professional Dressmaker, p. 135, by Jeanette Davis and Cora Holahan in 1894:

It has been stated that the bottom edge of a well-cut skirt should flow outward (sufficiently so, in fact, to quite shadow the feet when the wearer is in a standing position -- and a skirt which does not fulfil this condition is never quite satisfactory). To maintain this effect, frills, flounces, ruches, linings of crinoline and horsehair, balayeuses (or inside frills), wadded hems and rolls, etc., are all used in turn, and anything in the choice of lining or in the finishing of the bottom edge of the skirt that allows it to fall soft, or that draws it in in the slightest degree, is at once rejected as not meeting the requirements of the work. Methods of finishing which leave the edges thin are, therefore, less favoured than those which leave them firm and full, and all hems, stiffening, etc., are cut amply wide, and bindings, etc., well eased on, to guard against the danger of drawing in.

What a valuable set of information in one concise packet! Materials used to line the skirt should be "firm and full", with wide hems.

The Art of Dressmaking by Sophie Klug treats the facing and interfacing method in detail. So that you understand what is going on, I will quote pages 30 and 31 at length:

When the lining is ready, cut out the outside fabric and then the facing of linen canvas, haircloth or cross-bar crinoline. The canvas and crinoline should both be cut bias, from five to fifteen inches wide and to fit around the bottom of the skirt. Where the latter is not in one piece, cut the facing to fit each section. The depth of this facing is ascertained by the prevailing fashion, or shape of the skirt being made. If the style requires an interlining of stiffening, the above facing is only put on five inches deep, it being otherwise nine to fifteen inches wide, according to one's fancy. Baste this across the bottom of the lining one-half inch from the lower edge of the skirt, and fasten to position by stitching with the machine across its top edge. When haircloth is used, the edges must be bound with some firm material to prevent the hair from gradually working through to the top surface. If an interlining of stiffening is needed, there is for this purpose organdie, grass linen, moreen, fibre-chamois, haircloth, etc. The latter is often used for the back of skirts, while crinoline or fibre-chamois will be found quite sufficient for the front. This is chiefly done to lessen expense as only good haircloth should be employed. If the haircloth is to be entirely omitted use fibre-chamois throughout the whole skirt. (All haircloth must be shrunk before using.) To join any of the above named linings lap the edges one over the other, and sew together with short basting stitches, the haircloth having strips of firm lining stitched over each seam. Do this work very smoothly and press well to avoid seams showing on the outside material.

The stiffening is basted on the foundation after the canvas facing has been added and before the outside fabric is to be adjusted. The latter is then basted on smooth and even; under no circumstance should the baster allow the outside to be fuller than the lining, as this would cause the skirt to show puckers in the seams after being finished. Now baste the sections of the skirt together, stitch and press open the seams, which are then bound, over-casted or pinked.

An 1890s skirt in my possession features a lining and interlining made in this manner. Please see An Antique 1890s Black Skirt With Brush Braid In My Collection and check the lining and facing sections.

With three to four layers involved, even if some were lightweight, it is no wonder that wearers would complain of weight.

A key point, too, in Mrs. Klug's directions: how far up that interlining went was at the discretion of the maker and the wearer, and the interlinings could be very high indeed. In March 1895, The Ladies Home Journal column "The Gowns of the Spring" (page 19), written as usual by Isobel Mallon, wrote, "Facings that are light, and which, at the same time, stiffen, are put in the back breadths quite up to the belt, and in the front and side breadths to just above the knees."

Whether Sophie Klug would call these facings an interlining, I don't know.

A Bit About Interlining Materials, Including Fibre-Chamois

In the quotations above, we have heard of a variety of materials being used as interlinings: organdy, "grass linen", moreen, haircloth, crinoline, and "fibre-chamois". Organdy is still used as a lining and interlining, as are crinoline, and haircloth, which we met in the last post, and which is still made and sold in different widths. What about the rest?

Grass Linen

In June 1896, The Ladies Home Journal article by regular columnist Emma M. Hooper, titled "The Latest Summer Gowns" (p. 20) recommends grass linen for collars, blouses with cuffs of the same, and entire gowns and blouses and says that the fabric is very popular. A Complete Dictionary of Dry Goods and History of Silk, Cotton, Linen, Wool and Other Fibrous Substances (1892) offers a neat definition of grass linen as "a fine grass-cloth". Grass-cloth, in turn, is defined as being both "a heavy, buff-colored cotton muslin, used at present for children's underwear", and "China grass-cloth, beautiful, fine fabric made from the fiber of an India nettle" (p. 170). Well, another example of the all-too-common problem of the same name being applied to very different fabrics.

The 1894 Bulletin of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers said that grass cloth was made from a fiber in the nettle family.  The book Fabrics and How to Know Them, dating to 1923, has the best definition I have found (p. 26), and one that clears up our problem:

Canton linen. Commonly called grass cloth, Chinese grass cloth or grass linen. A fine, translucent fabric which looks like linen. Made of ramie fiber (china grass). It wrinkles like linen, but has a distinctive, clear, oiled appearance due to luster of ramie fibers when not twisted. Much worn in China in the stiff (or natural gum) unbleached state. Mostly hand woven. Cool and durable. Bleached or dyed blue. Sold usually in Oriental shops. Uses: lunch-clothes, doilies, blouses. Weave--plain. Width: "12, 18", 32", 36".

Aha! It has a linen look, so that's why it was popular for summer gowns, but, and here's where we can see its use in skirt interlinings: it can be woven in the ramie fiber's natural, gummed state. Ramie is a bast fiber, like flax, and like flax, it has a natural gumminess. I know that from hand-spinning! When a person hand-spins flax fiber, they keep their fingers wetted in order to dampen the fibers as they are drawn out and twisted, to wake up the gum and make it help the fibers stay twisted. The gum is washed out later. Ta-whoom-boom, a mystery no more.

You know, that only took me an hour or so to solve, with the help of Google Books and the Internet Archive. I am continually grateful for the internet and the decision some years ago to digitize old texts; doing so expanded our research abilities by a factor so large that I don't know what number to assign to it. A far cry from 1989, long afternoons when I photocopied pages from books and journals, and kept track of citations kept on index cards, as a graduate student working as a research gofer to a professor.

Moreen

This was a woolen or wool and cotton fabric with a watered surface.

Fibre-Chamois

Now we get to the fun stuff. Fibre-chamois. What is it, a plant-based version of chamois-skin that's still available for car buffs to buff their cars with? (What's up with "buff" meaning someone who has a particular hobby, anyway?) Or what was it?

It was an interlining, and it was a scam. Eh, not a complete scam or sham, but a product that the early marketers went wild with, which turned out to be made of pretty ordinary, cheap materials, as it came out.

Here it is, conveniently visible as a large advertisement next to the home dressmaking column in the pages of The Ladies Home Journal, March, 1895 (p. 35):

Sometimes the advertisements included instructions for how to use it in specific garments. In the New York Journal, (Sunday, March 21, 1897, p. 38) the company's advertisement included two illustrations showing how to interline a skirt. The left illustration shows the front-side of the skirt. It is interlined about halfway up. The right illustration shows the back of the skirt with its many folds. Here, the interlining is set all the way up to the waistband.

The small print under the two illustrations reads "Here we show how to support a skirt with "GENUINE" Fibre Chamois, and when the folds are gathered at the band the result will be as handsome as the finished dress shown above."

Here's an 1895 double endorsement on a trade card, from Lillian Russell, star actress, who has her name paired with it, and does Redfern and Sons, the upscale British tailoring establishment with offices in New York and Paris.

Boston Public Library. Permanent link: https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/gf06g7291

I just love this bit of iffy advertising, pulling in the lawyers to give evidence that the Fibre-Chamois product, and only the patented product, was legal, making all other lookalikes mere shams -- oh, I can't resist -- shammies. There were indeed patent infringement court cases.

Full-page advertisement in The Clothier and Furnisher, 1895.

As we have read, fashion columnists promoted the product, too. I am unsure if they were paid to do so, or not. The Ladies World for March, 1896, included a full-page article (p. 13) by a Madge Preston, titled "Fibre Chamois Is Awarded the Verdict of Superiority". Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly,  and The American Magazine, and probably others ran the same article.

What was it made of? Vegetable or wood pulp. That according to Rob Schoman, in Selling Style: Clothing and Social Change at the Turn of the Century (p. 57). You might have a look at the book to learn the rest of the story.

Oh well, horsehair, wood pulp? Fabric made from a plant in the nettle family? What's new? It wasn't so long ago we were putting cane into stays and beach grasses into farthingales.

Humps and Bumps: Too-Large, Too-High Interlinings

The advice about using interlinings as stiffening varied from journal to journal, and month to month.

The November 1894 Demorest's Family Magazine Mirror of Fashions promoted a blue and red house and carriage gown with a skirt 7 yards around, "lined to the waist behind, and above the knees in front, and on the sides, with horsehair crinoline."

A month later, the same magazine wrote (page 121):

Study to attain a pleasing conventional of outline, avoid eccentricities and extremes of cut or fabric, and you will pass as a well-gowned woman anywhere.

From this you may conclude that if you have the strength to carry great weight, and like to sit down on stiff lumps or humps, you may line your skirt to the waist behind with haircloth or the new chamois lining, but if you object to the weight and like your comfort, you can secure just as perfect style for your new gown by omitting the interlining, or, if a heavy cloth, you may finish it with only a facing.

That's a strong opinion! The writer, if it was the same one, wasn't. Done. Here's May's opinion (p. 420):

Demorest's Family Magazine, May 1895

Demorest's Family Magazine, May 1895

In April 1895 Demorest's Family Magazine, page 360: "Skirts of gowns are severely plain, but as full and rippling as heretofore; and the latest word from Paris is that positively no stiffening is used!" Well. After the above, are you surprised? Skirts were soon to deflate, after that.

Because interlinings and facings are so integral to other methods of achieving skirt fullness, further coverage of them will be interspersed in the next posts.

What Interlinings Might We Use Now?

When I made the 1890s skirt last summer, I used a very lightweight modern interfacing under the skirt facing as an 1890s-style facing/interlining. It did little to nothing to give the skirt body. Now that we understand that light cotton skirts didn't need such things, helps at the petticoat level being more the thing, that's what I'd suggest for a cotton or lightweight silk skirt.

For tailored linen skirts, wool or heavy fabric skirts, what's available? Commercial modern interlinings, of course, which have the advantage of being easy to find and test. Buckram in various weights, and you could size your own linen or canvas to achieve whatever level of bendability/stiffness you wanted, although that takes experimentation. You can also use a player from the original cast: haircloth. Again, this comes in various degrees of stiffness, so you will want to think hard before shelling out the money. Ramie interlining appears to be made still, as references to it pop up in Google, but I can locate no sellers.

Midwinter Spinning, Midwinter Sheep

Joining an end of yarn to fleece ready to be spun.

Every winter for getting on quite a few years the urge has come to sit and spin. In the Kentucky Bluegrass the days are faded, however blue the sky, or gray and so dim the streetlights sometimes come on, and we seem to orient ourselves towards the windows, or towards the lamps when the windows leak in only a moody, sometimes bitter light.

In that time for some reason handling wool is comforting. Spinning yarn requires attention and care, but the slow, thoughtful movements, the repetitive treadling of the wheel or the flicking of the supported spindle in the hand, and the drawing out of soft, washed fleece, watching as twist runs into the fibers and draws them into a springy, soft yarn, is soothing. It makes wan light, or wet light, or threatening light, or expectant light heavy with the thought of snow feel good and sweet, as illogical as that might seem.

I am wondering. Humans have spent so much of their lives spinning or twining fibers -- millenium after millennium -- to make ropes, strings, baskets, fabrics, those objects that help make life easier. Is the urge, once woken, still built in to our neural networks? Perhaps that's wishful thinking, but it sure does seem that way.

That's what I have been doing, after all the preparations, excitement, and stress of the end of the boys' fall school semester, and the Advent and Christmas seasons.



Pulling out a thin roving made of wool from our Shetland ewes, Lana and Nina.

Until 2018, I had prepared our ewes' fleeces for spinning by hand, by myself, as the boys are now too busy to interest themselves in the process. Even if the girls weigh under 75 pounds apiece, they still produce a great big humongous pile of fleece, two pillowcases stuffed to bursting. The pile would be knee-high if suddenly let out of the bags.

Black sheep, black sheep

Have you any wool?

Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full!

Oh, that's much too much --

Though it's very nice;

I'll take two instead

And spin it in a trice.*

In a trice? Erm, no...

(*My own weak doggerel, not part of the original rhyme.)

Each crimpy fragrant (if you like the smell of sheep, and I normally do) lock must be picked of its bits of straw, hay, seeds, and unmentionables. That's a pleasant thing to do outdoors, in the springtime, when it's breezy, because as you pull on the locks the moving airs will pull some of the vegetable matter -- VM -- and carry it away for you, gratis.

Then the fleece must be washed in small batches in several consecutive buckets of steaming hot soapy water, preferably outdoors, and rinsed in more buckets, and dried in creepy looking, drippy clumps in the basement, hung over a wooden rod above the old zinc washing sink. This is slow, wet, dirty work with a dash of danger as I haul boiling water in the teakettle outdoors to heat the bucketfuls of water.

I have a whole post about the process titled "Scouring and Teasing Shetland Fleece" from several years ago, when I first started working with wool. It might entertain you. It did me. I have so much fleece now that I'd never think to rescue such supremely dirty locks as I did then. Instead, I'd leave them out for birds and animals to make nests with.

This is from some years ago, when I first started working with wool. Boy, was that fleece a bit hard to work with...

Then the wool must be separated. This is an extra step, joyously extra, because our ewes give us a twofer. They are dual-coated, which means they are covered next to their skin with a fine, so-soft downy wool a couple of inches long that keeps them warm. Through and over that grow hairs, in spiral locks, up to about six inches long. These hairs remind me of very coarse human hair, and they direct rain and snow down their lengths and off the sheep, keeping the sheep warm and dry-ish.

Nina, will you model your coat for our readers, please? Thank you, sweet girl.

Nina, sporting her winter coat. See that spiral-locked outer coat? That's what makes her a dual-coated Shetland sheep,
an especially lovely and ancient type of Shetland.

Knowing how blustery the Shetland Islands are, a dual coat is Heaven-sent. It's an ancient sort of coat, and not all Shetlands sport it; thankfully there is enough genetic diversity in the breed that it keeps showing up, because it's luscious, or as I said, joyous.

Joyous, anyhow, until your hands ache after taking the umpteenth hundred lock in your hands and pulling each end to separate the long hairs from the down.

Try doing that on an entire ewe's worth of fleece. Now double it, to include Lana's wool. She's dual-coated, too.

Nina says, "I'm so sorry your hands are so sore. Do you have any crunchies? I can gum your fingers for them..." As of last year, she is fatter and bigger than her mother.

Lana -- that's her rump dead ahead, ignoring everyone because it's breakfast time.
She's next to her boyfriend Liam, also a Shetland, from whom she is not often
more than a few yards a way. He does not have a dual coat. That's a sweet Soay sheep, from
islands not too far from the Shetlands even more rugged than they are. My ewes live
with her and the rest of the flock at my friend Sarah's farm.

The hair from the separated wool is good for warp threads for weaving, or, mixed with the down wool, for tough outer garments, and I might try it for an add-in buckle for an 18th century hairdo.

We're not done, however. After separating the wool, there's carding the down coat to ready it for spinning. I have a hand-turned drum carder, so I don't have to use two hand carders and work lock by lock, thank heaven, but it's still a slow manual process to feed in each lock, and then run a full load through twice, and then offload the batt, tear it into three strips, and wind them into "nests" ready to spin.

So that's the process that I followed, and still follow, to some extent, because I actually enjoy some amount of hand-processing. It's hard, elemental work, and very satisfying. However, I found a wool processing mill that had the special equipment for separating fleeces, and now have a large amount of lovely, soft roving. It feels a little like cheating to spin so easily, without all the effort, but it's a nice change. Alas that the mill closed, and the only other one is in New England with a six months' wait! It may be back to hand processing.

I'll be back to finish up the 1890s posts in a bit. Right now, the wheel is in hypnotizing motion...

1895 Outfit: Period Methods To Add Skirt Fullness, Part 2A, Petticoats with Crinoline, Haircloth, Ties, Bones, Wires!

The back of an 1895-1900 silk and lace
petticoat, with back gathering and
back fluff helper tie!
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2009.300.3014.

Edited October 22, 2021

This is the second in a series of posts about how fullness was added to 1890s skirts. Warning, it's crazy long and packed with references. 

Here is the entirety of the post series:

• Part 1, Fullness and Flare
• Part 2A, Petticoats with Crinoline, Haircloth, Ties, Bones, Wires!
• Part 2B: Petticoats Redux
  
• Part 3, Skirt Interlinings
• Part 4, Skirt Godet Plaits and Interior Ties
• Part 5, Steels, Rattan, Candlewicking, and Dust Ruffles
  
• We also have a tour of a heavy, lined, faced, and brush-braided 1890s skirt:  An Antique 1890s Black Skirt With Brush Braid In My Collection.
• If you're interested in the project's entirety, please see 1890s: Costumes, Research, Documentation.

The Victorian era is rife with petticoats. We know that each stylistic era had its specialized petticoats which supported the prevailing silhouette, from 1830s corded petticoats, to mid-century hoopskirts, to late Victorian bustles integrated into petticoats. The mid-1890s was no different, although awareness of the types of petticoats I am going to write about doesn't seem to be general in in the costuming community -- the information sure was new to me.

Reliance on Advice Literature

Advice literature had plenty to suggest about petticoats. However, I have not spotted 1890s extant petticoats constructed with the more unusual additions of hair cloth and wires that the advice literature suggested, and only one with back ties, although I did find an outer skirt with wire. Does the warning that historians have given for decades apply here, that prescriptive literature is likely to reflect less what was done than what segments of society said should be done?

Or if the petticoats haven't survived in numbers, may it partly be due to the materials they were made of? Cotton petticoats seem turn up regularly, and silk ones turn up and are heavily represented in museum collections. Haircloth, a stiff, coarse, woven material made with horsehair or other hairs, and crinoline aren't that comfortable, and a haircloth petticoat? As a utility garment, I suspect that not many people might select to keep such a thing for sentimental reasons or for reuse. As for wires, they are easily removed and the yardage-eating wide skirts remade into narrower ones.

The Cut and Arrangement of Petticoats Holds Skirts Out -- and So Do Ties 

So, let's begin. Wearing petticoats with similar lines to the skirt they support is going to help hold out the skirt.  Isobel Mallon, one of the two main fashion and sewing columnists for The Ladies Home Journal, wrote:

"Except for a greater fullness the petticoats are cut almost exactly like the dress skirt. Lawn or cambric is used for them, although when thin white dresses are worn petticoats of dotted muslin are chosen, and being light tend to make the whole costume very cool and pleasant. The skirt of lawn with three ruffles, having upon them a group of tucks on each side of the lace insertion, and then below that a lace edge, is one that can endure much soap and water, and, not being over-trimmed, is good form. The fancy for setting lace in the skirt itself no longer obtains, and if anything, the trimming, which is all put on by hand, is simpler than ever before. A ribbon belt is usually drawn through a casing at the top, so that one may have one's skirt belt as loose or as tight as may be agreeable, and then, too, the doing away with the old close belt, to which the skirt was gathered, makes it much easier to iron the petticoat itself.

 Silk skirts have pinked ruffles, with lace ones alternating. These are not made as wide as the white skirts..." ("Dainty Styles in Lingerie", by Isobel Mallon, Ladies Home Journal, August, 1894, p. 23.)

Pay attention to "except for a greater fullness, the petticoats are cut almost exactly like the dress skirt". The petticoat is cut fuller than the outer skirt...interesting! Surely that would help a great deal.

The drawstring idea wasn't new. One year earlier, in 1893, Ms. Mallon's article "Dainty Lingerie of Today" (p. 20), had suggested the same thing, but she had added a significant detail: "no belt is put on these petticoats, but a drawstring is run in and the fullness kept well to the back." So here we have an easy way to add some fullness to the back of the skirt, if one is slender: put the petticoat on a drawstring and push the fullness to the back! Done with more than one petticoat, more fullness will be added.

One can take holding the petticoat's fullness to the back side even further. That's where the photo of the (probably) crepe silk petticoat from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, comes in. It is provided with the drawstring, plus ties so that the fullness in back can be gathered up and held in place according to taste. Let's look at that photo again. Brilliant! It may even be that the waistband drawstrings cover only the back portion of the waistband, so that the front and sides would remain smooth.




The back of an 1895-1900 silk and lace
petticoat, with back gathering and
back fluff helper tie!
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2009.300.3014.

This next series of screen captures come from a slightly naughty 1896 film titled "Victorian Lady in Her Boudoir" on YouTube. It was actually filmed outside on a set. You can see how similar the trim is to the petticoat above, what circumference it has when moved, and best of all, the tied section in the back which gives a little poof to the outer silk skirt she was wearing. It appears to be tied from the outside if you look carefully and see the long ribbons. Below that are screen captures showing the modest effect of the petticoat on the skirt while she is still and in motion.  You can see several versions of the video on YouTube. Here is one: https://youtu.be/YDw4z1PIJoQ.

Oh, and by the way, that outer skirt is closed with ties, tucked in! Was this for the sake of the film or was it a thing? Further, the handsome tied belt around her waist is a ribbon that she untied. In the last screen capture, she is removing a fluffy cape.

About That Frou-Frou Sound...

Yes, "frou-frou" was a term coined in the era to refer to the rustle of silk petticoats under the gown. However, was making a lovely rustling as one passed by in good taste? In the 1893 article we've just talked about, Ms. Mallon could hardly be more clear about refraining from fou-frouing, alas:

Very few women wear white petticoats with anything except those gowns that necessitate them. And when they are required I advise that they should be either of cambric or dotted muslin, and the only suggestion of starch about them around the hem. The petticoat that rattles is excessively vulgar.

The next year, she carries the warning to wearing silk petticoats: "Silk skirts have pinked ruffles, with lace ones alternating. These are not made as wide as the white skirts......for if they were they would rustle so that they would be counted in very bad taste." ("Dainty Styles in Lingerie", Ladies Home Journal, August, 1894)

So there you are.

I am inclined to rebel.

So were others. In the same magazine's write-in advice column "Hints on Home Dressmaking", March 1893, Emma M. Hooper, the columnist responded to a letter writer

MRS. JOSEPHINE S. --- Black silk petticoats are made of surah or taffeta, the latter being the "rustling silk" that you speak of, being preferred for that reason, as wearers of silk petticoats are not at all averse to the fact thus being known.

Writers in another publication were inclined to prefer silk petticoats for street wear over cotton ones. What an interesting thought. From "The Latest", in Home and Country (August 1895, p. 22):

Silk petticoats are a real necessity for summer wear. White muslin or cambric underskirts are excellent for the evening, but for street wear they are entirely unsuitable, becoming soiled in an hour or two, and the process of laundering them is both expensibe and difficult. A silk petticoat, on the contrary, does not retain dust or mud, and may be trimmed with yards upon yards of lace and ribbon, or simply ornamented by ruffles of its own material. If the underskirt matches the dress lining in color, the effect, when the dress is lifted, is highly pleasing.

 

The Number of Petticoats

Note that I am saying "petticoats", not just "petticoat". It was normal to wear more than one petticoat, although, as we shall see, there were exceptions to the advice.

The British sewing manual The Elements of Modern Dressmaking for the Amateur and Professional Dressmaker, by Miss J. E. Davis (1894) suggested multiple petticoats, treated in specific ways. In the chapter on drafting and constructing skirts, and in the section about lining skirts, Miss Davis promotes stiffened petticoats as a satisfactory way to maintain the fullness of a skirt, in preference to the use of stiffeners in the bottom edges of skirts  (p. 139):

Indeed, the use of stiffening in the [outside] skirt edge is a rather clumsy resource at any time, the wide effect being easier to secure if the upper petticoat below it is stiffened either with starched flounces, or with pleats and frills of horsehair. Upper skirts [meaning the topmost petticoat] trimmed with a couple of narrow flounces round the bottom edge set out the dress skirt well enough to give a moderately full effect, which will generally satisfy average wearers, especially if a narrow strip of horsehair is doubled and enclosed in the hem of each flounce, both being cut on the cross.

Miss Davis talks about an "upper petticoat" and "upper skirts": she is talking about the topmost of multiple petticoats. How many, she doesn't specify. As a note, Emma Hooper, the other fashion-centric columnist in Ladies Home Journal, didn't specify, either, when counseling a reader in her advice column, "Hints on Home Dressmaking". Instead, she counseled the reader to use her own usual number -- indicating the number varied from woman to woman:

Number of petticoats used. "Hints on Home Dressmaking",
by Emma M. Hooper, Ladies Home Journal,
June, 1894, p. 30.

I could trot out many more quotations in support of multiple petticoats, but that might multiplicate the boredom of reading this research article, which is, besides, a set of blog posts and not a piece I am submitting to an academic journal. Thus, no more quotes on this subject :}

An Interjection: Getting a Smooth Fit at the Waist With a Yoked Petticoat 

As we're talking petticoats, let's cover this, too. You can imagine how petticoats on drawstrings just recommended, might ruck up around the waist, or otherwise lose its position, especially if the wearer was not especially slender.

The Delineator provided a solution in a petticoat with a yoke, and fixed gathering in the back for the necessary fullness -- yes, this design should remind costumers of petticoats in the Natural Form era. Sketches of the petticoat, along with the original directions for making it, appear below. Even without the actual pattern, I am betting that many of us could replicate the garment from what is here.

A yoked petticoat with directions. The Delineator, February 18, 1895, pages 197-8.

I love yokes, especially if they are two layers sewn together. I have a yoked denim miniskirt: the wide yoke distributes the pressure on the lower abdomen, flattening it to some degree, while the absence of a narrow waistband prevents the waistband drawing in tightly while the abdomen below it protrudes. I am fairly sure that is why The Delineator recommended yokes.

Here is another one, from the same issue:

A yoked petticoat with directions. The Delineator, February 18, 1895, pages 240.

Do note: the writer says that a white petticoat will not be worn under a gown for the street in winter. Memo to file when you make a winter 1890s skirt!

Similar advice is dispensed by Isobel Mallon in the previously mentioned "Dainty Lingerie of Today." She says:

If one is inclined to be stout a yoke is advised in preference to a belt, and this yoke should be at least three inches in depth. This buttons, and then it is necessary to have a drawing-string far down in the skirt to keep the fullness from sagging to the front."

I am not sure, but that "drawing-string" might tie the fullness towards the back...and of course we've already read about that, and know its advantages.

Petticoats Stiffened With Starch, But Better, With Crinoline

If you were paying attention, and I am sure my prose is so lucid and exciting that you're reading this with trembling hands, you will have heard Miss Davis above suggest that a portion of the petticoats -- the flounces -- be starched, and Ms. Mallon say that the hem was the only place starch should be found. We all know starching practices used during previous fashion eras really help hold a skirt into the fashionable shape.

I suspect that Miss Davis really does just mean the flounces are stiff-starched, rather than the entire petticoat being dipped and starched, although it's possible that British taste in petticoats varied from American taste. Ladies Home Journal believed that women had experience with heavily starched garments being uncomfortable, especially in summertime:

Over-starched frocks are uncomfortable. Ladies Home Journal, July, 1895,
p. 21.

In fact, Isobel Mallon, a year earlier, wrote that muslin petticoats were out of style, and that petticoats were no longer stiffly starched:

"It has not been so very long ago since muslin was generally used for underwear. That it was thick, warm and by no means easy to arrange in a pretty way was not thought of, and if one suggested that in its place linen or lawn should be used someone else was already ready to announce that both of these materials were more expensive and more difficult to launder. Nowadays we know that lawn or percale, for the latter is frequently noted, is quite as cheap as muslin, because of the greater width, and that, as underwear is no longer made stiff with starch,  its laundering is quite easy." ("Dainty Styles in Lingerie", Isobel Mallon, Ladies Home Journal, August 1894, p. 23.)

A side note: by this date, many petticoats were made of lightweight fabrics, as were undergarments in general.

As I have said before, the favorite material for underwear, of course not counting the flannel for petticoats, is either lawn or percale. When the latter is chosen it usually has a fine stripe or tiny dot of some color on it. What are known as the cross-barred muslins, which are, by-the-by, very thin and inexpensive, are occasionally used for nightdresses to be worn during the summer, but this material is not noted in any other garment. Occasionally a light-weight cambric is selected for petticoats, but lawn is given the preference. Silk underwear has not the same vogue it had some time ago, but it cannot be denied that if one can afford to wear it, it is the most agreeable material imaginable." ("Dainty Styles in Lingerie", by Isobel Mallon, Ladies Home Journal, August, 1894, p. 23)

Starching the flounces of a lawn petticoat is going to have a different, more papery effect than starching a heavier weight fabric, such as a longcloth (which is thickish, soft, and dense), or a muslin. I do not know how well such would hold out a heavy silk or wool skirt, although it would work well for a summer muslin.

Not all advice is going to agree. The same year, a syndicated article in The McCook Tribune reported (January 12, 1894) "Evening skirts are now made with heavy flounces stiffly starched in the old fashion, and more than one skirt is worn. Some of the new white starched skirts have three overlapping flounces reaching from the belt to the hem in the back, and one full flounce extending all the way around the skirt to the knees. All these flounces are stiffened, but not to the point of rattling, and help to hold out the light skirts of the evening gown". As 1894 turned into 1895, starched pettis were not going to cut it in the skirt support department, and other ideas took over.

A Haircloth Petticoat, or Petticoat with Haircloth Additions

Haircloth is one of those utility fabrics which is still being manufactured, and still contains the horsehair or other hairs that it contained generations ago. It's still used in tailoring and other manufactures. Even Pellon, which manufactures interfacings, offers it.

A selection of haircloth images on Google Images.

Haircloth petticoats, or petticoats with added haircloth, appear repeatedly in dressmaking content in the mid-1890s. Of course, the idea of using haircloth to make petticoats was nothing new. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has one from the 1840s in their collection, and they appear as part of petticoats in other stylistic portions of the Victorian era.


Haircloth petticoat, 1840s.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
C.143.126.26

In "Comfortable Dressing in Summer" in the July, 1895 Ladies Home Journal, page 21, women are recommended to wear a petticoat made of haircloth to help the skirt achieve the proper set. Isobel Mallon, the regular fashion columnist for that magazine, wrote, "I have before this described the haircloth petticoat, the wearing of which makes it possible either to omit lining the cotton skirt, or the having a very soft, thin one." Underneath, she recommends wearing a "skirt of flannelette, reaching the knees...for while it gives the required warmth to the body, it is not heavy, nor does it seem to become imbued with the outside heat." Here is the idea of the insulating power of clothes against heat. However, she does say a bit further on that "(m)any women complain of the weight of the haircloth petticoat in summer."

Alas, I do not have a photograph anywhere, of what an 1890s haircloth petticoat actually looks like. However, illustrations do exist. Here's one, from The Salt Lake Herald, along with its article. The marketing aspect of this article is interesting.

 

The Salt Lake Herald, December 29, 1895, p. 10

What I did find were references to haircloth petticoats in other publications. Here is one in the February 1895 Delineator (p. 222):

If it is not desired to stiffen a skirt with an interlining, a petticoat of hair-cloth, made with the approved godets, may be worn. This will cause the skirt to flare as correctly as though it were held out by the usual means.

Another, appended to a summertime article, "The Latest" offering other options for skirt linings/interlinings in hot weather xx, 1895, p. 22):

Stiff skirt linings are practically abolished. This is probably due to the fact that they are utterly unsuited to transparent fabrics, in addition to the insupportable weight which they would give to hot-weather gowns. Foundation muslin is much used in place of stiffer fabrics for an interlining. There is also a tendency to making a foundation lining of light silk, to which the outer skirt is attached only at the band. The two materials thus fall in their natural folds. Another fashion is to do away with all linings, and merely to wear beneath the white petticoat an underskirt of the very lightest weight hair-cloth. [emphasis mine]

 

Yet another, with a few more details, in "Fashion, Fact, and Fancy", by Countess Annie de Montagu, in Godey's Magazine, (September 1895, p. 326):

The hair-cloth skirts are delightful for summer wear. No other petticoat, save a short under one, need be worn, provided the skirt is faced up with silk to about the depth of a quarter or half a yard. These skirts stand out beautifully and are exceedingly cool. The obviate the necessity of putting hair-cloth in the back of skirts. A new development is the wearing of hair-cloth in colors, which does away the necessity of facing with silk.

A writer named Judic Chollet recommended that "during the warm season it is far more comfortable to have the skirt made without a lining, relying on a well cut petticoat made of stiff goods for the proper flare." Presumably they were talking of haircloth. Their description of summery misery in a godet skirt is memorable: "Godet and other skirts, with an interlining of crinoline, have caused an immense increase in 'that tired feeling in women who lift the skirt in walking. It is impossible to gather the triple folds in one hand, and to use two is inconvenient as well as less graceful.  The godets are heavy and clumsy, and they weary the fingers and stretch the gloves." ("Summer Fashions." Mower County Transcript, July 10, 1895). Well!

In the July Ladies Home Journal issue referred to above, Mrs. Mallon describes a silk petticoat with haircloth box-plaitings, to be worn under those skirts that are too light to carry a stiff lining. Just to reiterate, the petticoat itself is of silk: only the box-pleats are made of haircloth. She writes:

The newest skirt, however, is the one shown at Illustration No. 2. It is made of white moreen, and is to be worn under cotton, silk, or any light-weight material that will not stand a stiff lining. It is cut by the godet pattern [in other words, with back godet plaits, which I will cover in another post] and has as decoration three box-plaitings of the white haircloth, the top one having as a finish a thick silk cord. This seems a rather expensive skirt, but it will be found very useful, especially to the woman who likes pretty cotton toilettes. 

Here is the illustration belonging to the description:

Petticoat with haircloth box pleatings. Ladies Home Journal, July 1895, p.25.

I find this petticoat idea very interesting. If I were to make one, each of the box-pleated flounces would be composed of silk covering the haircloth. That way the exterior would be smoother, prettier, and less likely to catch or rub on the skirt lining.

The reader who remembers many paragraphs back in this long article get extra points for recalling part of what Miss. Davis wrote in The Elements of Modern Dressmaking, above:

Upper skirts [meaning the topmost petticoat] trimmed with a couple of narrow flounces round the bottom edge set out the dress skirt well enough to give a moderately full effect, which will generally satisfy average wearers, especially if a narrow strip of horsehair is doubled and enclosed in the hem of each flounce, both being cut on the cross. [my emphasis]

Her advice would only apply to fabric petticoat flounces, rather than the lace flounces that were so popular. If we make a petticoat today, and have the wherewithal to use lace for the outermost flounce, we can still do as she suggests with the ruffle or ruffles on the lowest part of the petticoat under the flounce.

Home Dressmaking Made Easy, written by Emma M. Hooper, one of Isobel Mallon's fellow Ladies Home Journal columnists, offers a design (p. 38) with a wide flounce made of haircloth:

"Some ladies wear a petticoat of haircloth made with a yoke and upper part of sateen, for the sake of its lightness; then a Spanish flounce (18 inches deep) of haircloth box-plaited on the front and side and godet flutes used at the back. This flounce is turned up at the lower edge, faced with sateen and finished with a bias velveteen binding or braid, making a skirt for all gowns, though personally I prefer a silk petticoat and interlined dress skirt. Haircloth has a niche of its own, and is one of those fortunate or unfortunate articles used in dressmaking that cannot have a satisfactory substitute."

Bones and Wires In the Petticoat: A Hoopskirt For the 1890s?

In 1893 there were rumors that the crinoline would return. Hoopskirts and crinolines never did make a comeback, but boning, wire and other hard structural aids did. Who knew? Not many of us, I think.

Here is Isobel in the summer of 1895 ("The Summer Petticoat". Ladies Home Journal, July 1895, p.21):

Many women complain of the weight of the haircloth petticoat in the summer. When this is felt I would advise a skirt of mohair, cut exactly as if it were a dress skirt, and stiffened with five rows, quite close to each other, of the narrow whalebones that come for this purpose. They are mounted in the center of a braid that, extending beyond the bone on each side, makes it easy to sew the bands in position. This bone is pliable, as the best quality of whalebone is  used, and it certainly will hold the skirt exactly as fashion dictates. A cheap arrangement of whalebone which is covered, but which has no extension of braid like that described, is seen, but I cannot recommend it, as in sewing it on, the needle would be apt to go through the whalebone, and once it is split no wear can be expected from it. The one of which I approve I have seen tried, and that is why I commend it for stiffening petticoats or gowns for the woman who find the haircloth at once heating and heavy.

There were braids fitted with whalebones sold especially for the purpose of creating something related to a hoopskirt out of a petticoat! Because the braid is sewn on to a petticoat shaped exactly like a dress skirt, the lines of the dress skirt would be retained. 

Emma M. Hooper describes a similar product to a subscriber, Addie, in her write-in column, Home Dressmaking, in the April 1895 issue of Ladies Home Journal (p. 34). In this case, the reason for the steeled hem is to keep the feet free, but it of course holds the skirt out, also. 

There is a flat pliable steel covered with a kind of webbing that is excellent for using in a petticoat. It should be run in a casing an inch above the bottom edge and keeps the petticoat from flapping against the ankles. (2) A black alpaca petticoat is excellent for traveling.

In The Salt Lake Herald piece earlier in this post, the writer calls the wire product "wire braids". 

Here's another description of "tiny steel tape through the hem", this one from Vogue magazine, 1894, p. 217. Once again, the wire is advised as a way to avoid the weight and over-warmness of heavy underskirts. Vogue is not a fan of moreen:

Hem stiffener in the form of "tiny steel tape".
Vogue, Volume 3, 1894, p. 217.

A syndicated article in The McCook Tribune (January 12, 1894) reported "[a] swell dressmaker confessed recently that the reason why some of the flaring skirts hung out around the bottom with such a graceful flare was because of a flexible steel a quarter of an inch in width which runs through the hem. Some of the latest silk petticoats have two of these wires run through the folds, one at the hem and another a few inches above."

The nature of these wires is becoming a bit clearer...Vogue says they're "tiny" and "tapes", and the McCook Tribune defines the wire as 1/4" wide, which is quite small. Put these two ideas together and I believe we get thin, flat spring steel. To me, this sounds an awful lot like a flat spring wire, such as is used in old watch springs, wee steel measuring tapes, and the like. It would be pliable, yet spring back into shape. 

It sounds, however, as if there were multiple types of wires. The Louisiana Democrat "Woman's World" column claimed that the French designer Montalle "puts nothing in his dress skirts, but provides a petticoat with very fine aluminum wires run in it." The same article claims that the French aversion to heavy stiffenings is what had and would continue to prevent the old crinoline skirt from making a comeback. (February 13, 1895).

Wires In the Hems of Outer Skirts: An Aside

By the way, the wires could be run into the hems of the outer skirts, as well petticoats. After looking for many months, I've only found a single example in which the description included a note about an internal wire, a light-colored mid-decade striped silk day dress featured on the blog All the Pretty Dresses. The blog pulled the dress pictures and descriptive information from a sale site. The description included the following: "The skirt closes by hooks and loops at the back and is poor/fair condition. Its silk lining has a added wide net lace dust ruffle at hem. Inside of skirt has ties to adjust fullness bustle effect. The hem has a wire inserted around perimeter added for fullness at base."

Light-colored 1890's day dress, in All the Pretty
Dresses blog.

As you can tell, the wire would have to be very light weight indeed to fall easily into those gorgeous rounded folds in the back...like Vogue's "tiny steel tape". 

Here's another mention of wire in outer skirts, this from the Evening Star, May 05, 1894 in reference to a costly day dress: "the skirt being made very flaring, with godet plaits wired and held by stays" just as in the dress photographed above. I wonder if it was just the back of the skirt with the large flutes that was wired.

The pliability of these wires, probably for both skirts and petticoats, is made clear in the following article:

The Salt Lake Herald, December 30, 1894.

Finally! We can say pretty confidently that the wires that held these skirts out were indeed springy: the godet plates -- the big fluted folds -- "open and shut with a movement like a fan". I cannot tell you how excited I was to read these words, because it's now clear that the steel wires were flat narrow spring steel.

I bet the same product was used in the petticoats! Oh frabjous day...I've been trying to figure out what these wires were like for almost a year.

To celebrate, a bit of humor. The writer of the "Feminine Affairs" column in To-day, a magazine which described itself as a "Weekly Magazine-Journal" commented on wired skirts in the December 8, 1894 issue, p. 140. She and her husband were at a Church Parade:

"Jim was with me, and he trod on a lady's gown, much to her annoyance and to his own intense disgust, for you know how he prides himself on his freedom from clumsiness in such matters. But it led to a discovery. The skirt was wired all round the edge. Now, could there be a subtler trap for masculine feet than this?"

The lady in question had worn her skirt to touch the ground to help her appear taller, which the writer understood but still felt wasn't "quite excusable", because "all the smart people wear their skirts well off the ground". Well, so much for humor. Ack: the snobbery in fashion...

I have not been able to inspect a real live example of a dress or petticoat with wire. Until research turns something up or the pandemic lessens enough that I can visit either the Cincinnati Museum or Kent State collection, we don't know exactly what this wiring was like and if it was a highly flexible flat spring wire as I suspect, or if there were more than one type of wiring available.

Just to whet your appetite, there were many other wire- or bone-like skirt distenders available. You'll meet them in a post further on in this series.

Next time? Skirt interlinings, and all about those big funnelly, fluted back-of-the-skirt folds -- godets.