The History of Underclothes by C. Willett & Phillis Cunnington

Author:C. Willett & Phillis Cunnington
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 1992-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

5. THE BUSTLE

This was becoming larger, either as a crescentic pad stuffed with down, often double or treble, and tied round the waist (figure 58); or made of gathered rows of stiffened material, or of whalebone.9 A down-stuffed bustle, dated 1833, is in the Cunnington collection, Platt Hall, Manchester.

‘The diameter of the fashionable ladies at present is about three yards; their bustles (false bottoms) are the size of an ordinary sheep’s fleece. The very servant girls wear bustles! Eliza Miles told me a maid of theirs went out one Sunday with three kitchen dusters pinned on as a substitute.’10 Another writer declares, ‘nothing can be in worse taste than the monstrous and ill-shaped bustles we commonly see sometimes placed altogether on one side; and sometimes so irregular that they look as if some domestic utensil were fastened under the dress.’11 We are also informed that the bustle ‘has the drawback of being liable to slip out of place, being situated in a region on which the fair wearer is unable to keep an observant eye.’ That this was not uncommon may be gathered from the loud comment of the schoolgirls on their form-mistress: ‘Miss Trimmer’s bustle’s on crooked !’12

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