Unhoop the Fair Sex: the Campaign Against the Hoop Petticoat in Eighteenth-Century England Author(S): Kimberly Chrisman Source: Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol

American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS)

Unhoop the Fair Sex: The Campaign Against the Hoop Petticoat in Eighteenth-Century England Author(s): Kimberly Chrisman Source: Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Fall, 1996), pp. 5-23 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Sponsor: American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS). Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30053852 Accessed: 20-03-2017 14:42 UTC

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This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms YHOOP THE FAIR SEX: THE CAMPAIGN

AGAINST THE HooP PETTICOAT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

Kimberly Chrisman

Hail, happy coat! for modern damsels fit, Product of ladies' and of taylors' wit; Child of Invention rather than of Pride, What Wonders dost thou show, what wonders hide.'

The origin of the hoop petticoat-specifically, the factors responsible for its emergence and unprecedented popularity in eighteenth-century England- is a matter of much controversy and conjecture.2 But even more problematic than the history of the hoop are the reasons why so many women adopted it, and the vehe- mence with which so many men opposed it. As one Victorian historian wrote, "if the ladies had determined to do their best to excite the wrath of all satirists, nothing could better serve the purpose" than this singular article of dress.3 From its unsung birth in about 1709 to its ignominious death in 1820, the style was perpetually mocked in poems, caricatures (see p. 6), and satirical diatribes with titles like "A Short and True Description of the Great Incumbrances and Damages that City and Country is like to sustain by Women's Girded Tails" and "The Enormous Abomination of the Hoop Petticoat as the Fashion now is." Yet the hoop petticoat remained popular throughout the eighteenth century, despite its inconvenient size and shape, the fickleness of fashion, and continual complaints from the papers and the pulpit.

KIMBERLY CHRISMAN received her B.A. in English and Eighteenth-Cen- tury Studies from Stanford University. She is currently enrolled as a gradu- ate student in History of Dress at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 30, no. 1 (1996) Pp. 5-23.

This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms This anonymous print, circa 1730, depicts the scene outside a Cheapside hoop warehouse. The text advertises "A new Invention by your Sex'es Friend," a system of "silken Cords" designed "to guide the huge Machine" through crowded streets, as demonstrated by the woman at the left. In the center, a black servant holds his lady's skirt in imitation of the hooped silhouette, while a hoop-wearing woman is lowered into her carriage by pulleys. At the right, Sir Isaac Bickerstaff presides over The Tatler's mock trial of the hoop petticoat; the "wide Machine" is displayed "to public jeer and Sport," while its owner "Wails her lost Hoop." The hoop-like cupola of St. Paul's Cathedral can be seen in the distance. Photograph courtesy of the British Museum.

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The hoop's history mirrors the history of economics, gender rela- tions, and social mores in eighteenth-century England. The artifact is unique to that time period, peaking in both size and ubiquity in the 1750s. And, although it was worn throughout Europe, contemporary accounts suggest that the hoop petticoat was almost certainly invented in England. In any case, it was there that the hoop acquired its lasting meaning and notoriety. Despite obstacles both practical and perceived, the garment endured to become an icon for its age: "Epitomizing the quixotic tenacity of fashion itself, neither convenient, comfortable, cheap, nor by many accounts even attractive, the hoop held on in the face of practical difficulty and outright attack to become a sartorial symbol central to the iconography of the eighteenth century."4 The origins, innovations, fluctuations, and failings of the hoop demon- strate the tenacity of eighteenth-century Englishwomen in their struggle for sexual autonomy. Although it is tempting to condemn the hoop as yet another example of female subjugation through dress, such as the medieval chastity belt or the crippling corsets of the nineteenth century, the hoop actually had quite the opposite function. In the face of widespread and violent protest from men, women willingly adopted the hoop as a means of protecting, controlling, and, ultimately, liberating female sexuality.

In order to understand the significance of the hoop petticoat in eighteenth-century society, we must chart the development of female fashion until that time. Although the artificially inflated female silhouette reached its outer limits in the eighteenth century, the shape had long been familiar in Western Europe. Since the Middle Ages, female dress had been characterized by broad, flowing skirts, suggesting or mimicking pregnancy. Three closely related garments-the Elizabethan farthingale, the eighteenth-century hoop petticoat, and the Victorian crinoline- represent what one theorist has called "the culmination of the distinctive feminine garment, the skirt, as a protection and affirmation of the pelvic character."' The hoop's excesses suggest that eighteenth-century women were especially desirous of sexual "protection and affirmation."

Although the hoop petticoat was unique to the eighteenth century, its history begins in the Middle Ages. The farthingale (also known as the fardingale, vardingale, verdyngale, vertugade, and, occasionally, the hoop) appeared in continental Europe sometime in the fifteenth century. It consisted of a petticoat stiffened by tiers of cane, osier, wicker, or whalebone hoops. The genesis of the farthingale is even more obscure than that of the hoop petticoat. The style likely originated in Spain, as the term farthingale is derived from the Spanish word verdugo, or stick, suggesting something supported by rods. One theory is that the fashion was dictated by the fabrics available at the time. Following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Europe was flooded with exotic Eastern imports. "Among the new imports were luxury fabrics of great stiffness and richness.... These obviously could not be shown to effect in the clinging, softly falling styles used for clothes made of the earlier native woollens."6 In order to be displayed to advantage, the heavy fabrics had to be supported by full, elaborately engineered skirts. Another source claims that Queen Juana of Portugal invented the verdugo in 1470, to conceal an illegitimate pregnancy.7 Indeed, the fashion was adopted (and, alternately, banned) throughout Europe at about that time, and its invention has frequently been attributed to various members of Europe's royal courts who hoped to hide an embarrassing pregnancy. Mary Tudor, who married

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Philip II of Spain in 1554, was among the first Englishwomen to don the farthingale, a fact further supporting the Spanish hypothesis.

Though it remained almost exclusively a court fashion, the farthingale achieved widespread notoriety for its size and splendor. It appears in several contemporary paintings, including many portraits of Queen Elizabeth (Ewing 26-27). The conical Spanish or wheel farthingale was eventually joined by the cylin- dric French or drum farthingale. This style was popularized by Eleanor of Castille, the second wife of Francis I, in about 1530.8 The French version, which featured a large hoop worn at the waist and tilted down in front, still enjoys a reputation as "the most unnatural and probably the most uncomfortable and inconvenient garment in the whole story of fashion" (Ewing 27). Nevertheless, it remained in vogue until about 1625, when Charles I came to the English throne.

Perhaps under the influence of Charles' French-born wife, Henrietta Maria, the cumbersome farthingale was then rejected in favor of a more natural skirt, still buoyed by petticoats but not artificially dilated. The top petticoat (or underskirt) was frequently visible throughout the seventeenth century, giving it a new symbolic, if not literal prominence.9 English dress was further simplified during the years of the Commonwealth, 1649-60, when the ruling Puritans discouraged ostentatious orna- mentation in favor of austere attire. But when Charles II returned to England from exile in France, he brought with him that country's luxurious, lightweight fabrics and provocative styles, including d&colletage and the bustle. The latter, along with the petticoat's unusually high profile, prefigured the rise of the eighteenth-century hoop petticoat (Ewing 36).

The exact date of the hoop petticoat's invention is as ambiguous as the identity of its inventor. The Tatler refers to "the new-fashioned Petticoats" as early as December 29, 1709, jokingly crediting their creation to "Mrs. Catherine Cross- Stitch" (No. 113). Significantly, from its inception, the hoop was incorrectly characterized as a "new" style, and satirically attributed to female folly. In fact, hoops, like corsets, were always made by men, as women were not strong enough to manipulate the boning materials. Furthermore, the hoop petticoat undoubtedly evolved from the farthingale, which may have survived in Germany through the seventeenth century before reemerging in England in a somewhat modified form. Accordingly, a subsequent edition of The Tatler uses the terms synonymously, calling the hoop "the new- fashioned Petticoat, or old-fashioned Fardingal" (No. 118). In 1741, London Maga- zine also hypothesized that the hoop "took its first Rise only by enlarging the Form of the ancient Fardingale."'o The growth of the Lyons silk trade under Louis XIV may have been partly responsible for the genesis of the hoop as well, since the sudden availability of fine silks brought voluminous skirts back into fashion (Waugh 47). Although the farthingale was designed to support and display the heavy fabrics popular in the Elizabethan era, the fragile hoop petticoat was better suited to the new, lightweight French and Indian imports. Varying reports claim that hoops were first worn by courtesans, actresses, or by Madame de Montespan, Louis XIV's mistress, who supposedly used them to conceal physical defects resulting from an accident (Crawley 73). But more important than the question of who wore them first is the fact that hoops were quickly adopted by women of diverse classes and characters.

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Whatever its intent, the hoop had the effect of expanding the lower half of the female figure. The first hoops were bell-shaped and consisted of three or more graduated hoops of whalebone, hand-sewn into the fabric of a light, but sturdy petticoat. Whalebone is not bone at all, but baleen, the material that takes the place of teeth in certain whales, called whalebone whales in the eighteenth century and baleen whales today. In her comprehensive history, Corsets and Crinolines, Norah Waugh describes baleen as "a substance in appearance like horn, formed from an agglomeration of hair covered with enamel. ... The hair fibres run parallel and quite even so that a plate of baleen may be split its entire length to any degree of thinness without impairing its peculiar quality of lightness, elasticity, and flexibility. When softened in hot water or by applying heat, it retains any given shape provided it is secured in that shape until cold" (Waugh 167). In addition to its fortuitous physical properties, whalebone was easily obtained because the whaling industry had moved from the exhausted Bay of Biscay to fecund Greenland in the early seventeenth century." The Greenland whale was especially valuable for whalebone, with plates ten to fifteen feet in length. Unfortunately for London merchants, the Greenland whaling industry was operated by the Dutch, although the English had pioneered the industry and repeatedly tried to regain control of its fisheries. Between 1715 and 1721, 150 tons of whalebone per year entered London ports alone, commanding as much as x400 per ton. By 1771, that price peaked at j700 per ton, before declining as hoops fell from favor (Waugh 168).

Sartorial whimsy, technological advances, and logistical difficulties all contributed to several innovations in hoop design by the mid-eighteenth century. Whalebone hoops were increasingly replaced by cane, which was cheaper, more flexible, and, manufacturers claimed, would "outwear the best sort of whalebone."12 Experiments with wicker and wire followed. The "fan" hoop and "oblong" (or "square") hoop became fashionable in the 1740s and 1760s, respectively, although they may have been invented earlier. These hoops were compressed from front to back or divided into two elongated side hoops, giving the skirt its widest-ever breadth (about six feet) and at the same time flattening it in front and behind. The fan hoop was triangular in shape, with a disproportionately wide base which caused the skirt to curve upward on each side. The oblong hoop was straight from hip to heel and could be hinged, enabling the wearer to lift its sides to pass through narrow spaces. These convenient hoops were fashionably worn under carefully fitted outer skirts, pressed free of creases (Ewing 39). The oblong hoop closely resembles a late Spanish variation of the farthingale, the mid seventeenth-century guard-infanta, also known as the sacristan or tontillo (Boucher 277). Even more convenient than hinged hoops were small side hoops, fixed on each side of the hips by tapes which circled the wearer's waist (Fairholt 2:255). Because they often contained pockets, they were called pocket hoops. Invented in the 1720s, pocket hoops were worn until 1775 for informal dress, the larger hoops being reserved for formal occasions." Due to its manageable size and practical capacity, the pocket hoop outlasted its larger, showier counterparts.

The French version of the hoop petticoat--called paniers, meaning baskets-first appeared in Paris in 1714 or 1715, having been imported from En- gland or possibly adapted from criardes, the starched, "screeching" underskirts worn by actresses. By 1725, paniers consisted of five hoops, the uppermost nicknamed the

This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 10 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 30 / 1 traquenard, or "trap." In the 1730s, paniers were flattened in front and back by a system of cords, prefiguring the English fan and oblong hoops. Double (i.e., unat- tached) paniers appeared in France in 1750: two semicircles of canvas-covered bone or rush, fastened by ribbons. Like the oblong hoop, double paniers could be lifted up under the arms for convenience, or, alternately, reduced to the size of the pocket hoop (Boucher 295-96). Denis Diderot's Encyclopedie records that this "mode grotesque" fell from favor by 1765, though it remained obligatoire at court until the French Revolution.

Compared to the farthingale, the hoop petticoat was lightweight and relatively flexible. Indeed, it was easily upset by the wind, falls, or sudden move- ments, so that underclothing and even bare flesh became scandalously visible. Be- neath their hoops, eighteenth-century Englishwomen wore a knee-length chemise, knee- high stockings with garters, a corset (also called stays), and one or more hoopless petticoats, which became shorter over the course of the century. White stockings, introduced in the late 1730s, mimicked nudity and fanned scandal. Although drawers had become part of feminine apparel in some continental countries, such as Italy, they were not worn in England until the early nineteenth century; ironically, they were considered immodest, having been an exclusively male garment for so many centuries (Ewing 34). Whether by accident or by design, the hoop petticoat provided European men with their first glimpse of female legs, which had been closely shrouded in heavy petticoats for so many centuries. Simultaneously, it gave women better mobility and ventilation, which they would not soon surrender.

Various forms of hoop petticoats remained popular until the 1780s, when they disappeared from private life. Casual, negligee dress styles, introduced mid-century, slowly softened the female silhouette as they influenced formal wear, and the high-waisted, classically-inspired gowns born of the French Revolution were sufficiently supported by small cushions at the hips. Although the Revolution squashed the hoop petticoat in France, where it became a symbol of the decadence of Louis XVI's court, enormous hoops-hung with "immense bows of ribbon, cords, tassels, wreaths of flowers, and long swathes of coloured silks"-were worn at the English court well into the nineteenth century (Fairholt 1:407). Indeed, the hoop petticoat would likely have survived even longer than it did, if not for the vagaries of fashion and the vacuity of Queen Charlotte. Court dress throughout Europe changed more slowly than everyday wear, and during her reign, the Queen enforced this fashionable fossil- ization with a passion. Thus, in Thomas Gainsborough's 1781 portrait, the Queen- in full court dress-wears the wide hoops and tiered sleeves that had come into (and gone out of) style decades earlier. The Queen made few concessions to fashion, and those she did make only drew ridicule. Of all her so-called innovations, the most ridiculous involved the hoop petticoat. She insisted that hoops continue to be worn past their vogue, which "would have been acceptable if the Queen had signaled that full court dress should retain the natural waistline and full skirt of... the late 1770s, but no such signal was given."14 Instead, beginning in the 1790s, large hoops appeared under the diaphanous, high-waisted gowns then in style. The Queen may have been motivated by economic concerns as well as respect for tradition; hooped gowns required more fabric and more hours of skilled labor. (There is considerable prece- dence for this theory: in 1765, for example, the Queen had asked the ladies of the

This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CHRISMAN / Unhoop the Fair Sex 11 court to wear only Spitalfields silk, to encourage the national silk trade.)'" Alternately, these punishing standards may have been designed to keep undesirables out of her hoop-crammed drawing room. But as everyday dress became more and more simplis- tic, the hoop seemed increasingly awkward and archaic.

The famously fashion-conscious Prince Regent respectfully main- tained the standard of court dress enforced by his parents while they lived. But upon coming to the throne in 1820, two years after the Queen's death, George IV announced in his very first Drawing Room address, "His Majesty is graciously pleased to dis- pense with Ladies wearing Hoops" (quoted in Cumming 97). The rubric was greeted with sighs of relief from both sexes, and aristocratic women instantly abandoned their anachronistic hoops for the latest French fashions, with the cursory addition of a train and feather headdress for court. But this upheaval does not necessarily mean that the hoop itself had fallen from favor. Rather, it indicates the influence which fashion had attained over the course of the eighteenth century. In addition to being outmoded, hoops destroyed the graceful Grecian line of the new gowns, a double ignominy to fashionable women of the age. Although the new court dress was more modish than the hoop, it was no more comfortable and no less ostentatious, nor did it succeed in bringing court dress in step with fashion. By 1834, the same women were complaining that the requisite feather headdresses were already out of date (Cumming 103). Had Queen Charlotte preserved the traditional hooped styles in their entirety, she would not have provoked so much mirth and resentment and might have succeeded in saving the hoop.

The question of why any woman would willingly wear a hoop petticoat is not a new one. From the time of their invention, hoops have confounded even the most enlightened men of reason. In 1741, a London Magazine article titled "The Modern Hoop Petticoat" ventured this explanation:

I have heard it objected, that the ancient Petticoat must necessarily too much confine the Woman's Legs; whereas the circular Hoop gave the Feet a Freedom of Motion, shew'd the Beauty of the Leg and Foot which play beneath it, and gain'd Admirers when the Face was too homely to attract the Heart of any Beholder; Some polite Defenders of the late 'convex cupolo' Hoops have observ'd in their Favour, that they serv'd to keep men at a proper Distance, and a Lady within that Circle, seem'd to govern in a spacious Verge sacred to herself. (75)

However, the author quickly, harshly decried these objections: "I will not here give as many Reasons as may be brought to shew the Fallacy of this Argument; be it suffi- cient, that it was well known that many Ladies, who wore 'hoops' of the greatest Circumference were not of the most impregnable Virtue" (75). Should this attack on female virtue fail to discourage the wearing of the hoop, the author concluded: "I know no other Argument should sooner prevail with [women], than to acquaint them it is a Mode very disagreeable to the Men in general" (76).

Surely, this statement is facetious. By 1741, no woman needed to be "acquainted" with how "the Men" felt about the hoop petticoat, nor could the author of London Magazine seriously expect his plea to "prevail." The hoop literally This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 12 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 30 / 1 presented a wide target for satirists, and, since its first mention in The Tatler, an enormous body of criticism had grown up around the garment, encompassing every available form of satire and social commentary-pamphlets, essays, caricatures, ser- mons, and poems-and every possible point of debate. Yet the hoop kept expanding, both literally and figuratively, in flagrant disregard of these male arbiters of taste and morality. Indeed, it is likely that the outrage which greeted the hoop petticoat only increased its popularity, both by publicizing the new style and by piquing its devotees.

Part of the hoop petticoat's menace seems to have been its immense (and ever-increasing) size. Satirists often identify the hoop by its bulk; The Tatler called it "that growing Evil" and the Weekly Journal referred to it as "this spreading mischief" (No. 162; quoted in Fairholt 1:358). In 1711, a letter to The Spectator noted with alarm that "their petticoats ... are now blown up into a most enormous concave, and rise every day more and more" (No. 127).16 London Magazine complained that while the earliest hoops were "confin'd to a very moderate and decent Circumference," by 1741 the garment had metamorphosed into "a wide oblong Form, and had nothing of the primitive 'Hoop' but its mere Name left" (75). The hoop not only swelled in size, but in popularity, infiltrating the English countryside as well as the European continent. It is indicative of the hoop's ubiquity that in 1731, P. Miller's Gardener's Dictionary described a "Rush-leaf'd Daffadil, with very narrow Petals, and a large tubulous Cup, commonly call'd The Hoop-Petticoat."'7 Although it is not always clear which type of growth-physical or geographical-was meant, both were evidently considered dangerous.

Satirists were quick to point out (and, usually, exaggerate) the inconveniences women faced while wearing hoop petticoats. "A gentleman" writing to The Spectator on July 28, 1711 joked that as he traveled through the notoriously provincial English countryside, the hoop petticoat "grew scantier and scantier, and about threescore miles from London was so very unfashionable, that a woman might walk in it without any manner of inconvenience" (No. 129). A letter printed in Lon- don Magazine in 1741 reported:

I have been in a moderate large Room, where there have been but two Ladies, who had not Space enough to move without lifting up their Petticoats higher than their Grandmothers would have thought decent; I believe every one has observed to what Pains a lady is put, to reduce that wide extended Petticoat to the narrow Limits of a Chair or a Chariot; But let her manage her getting in or out ever so skill- fully or modestly, yet, she makes but a very grotesque Figure with her Petticoats standing up half way the Glasses, and her head just peep- ing out above them. (76)

But more often, the inconveniences cited are those affecting innocent bystanders- men, particularly-rather than the wearer. In July of 1713, a letter to The Guardian charged the hoop petticoat with "hurting Mens Shins, sweeping down the Ware of industrious Females in the Street &c. I saw a young lady fall down, the other Day, and, believe me Sir, she very much resembled a Bell without a Clapper. Many other Disasters I could tell you of that befall themselves as well as others, by means of this unwieldy Garment" (No. 114). This is not to say that the hoop petticoat was an object

This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CHRISMAN / Unhoop the Fair Sex 13 of ridicule only so far as it inconvenienced men; rather, it was taken up as an all- encompassing symbol of female (and, by extension, fashion's) caprice.

The hoop petticoat's constant permutations were a source of end- less amusement and mock-bewilderment. Some satirists even proposed their own methods for managing this clumsy carapace. The first recorded mention of the hoop petticoat (in The Tatler) was accompanied by a mock advertisement for "a round Chair ... Six Yards and a half in Circumference, with a stool in the Centre of it: and a Coach for the Reception of one Lady only, who is to be let in at the Top." The coach, according to "William Jingle, Coach-maker and Chair-maker," has been tested "by a Lady's Woman in one of these full Petticoats, who was let down from a Balcony, and drawn up again by Pullies, to the great Satisfaction of her Lady, and all who beheld her" (No. 113). In 1754, when the hoop was "nearly of an oval form, and scarce measure[d] from end to end above twice the length of the wearer," The Con- noisseur observed: "The hoop has been known to expand and contract itself from the size of a butter-churn to the circumference of three hogsheads: at one time it was sloped from the waist in a pyramidical form; at another it was bent upwards like an inverted bow, by which two angles, when squeezed up on each side, came in contact with the ears" (No. 36). London Magazine acknowledged the large body of hoop criticism by way of launching its own contribution to the debate," explaining that "the Ladies ... have so chang'd and new modell'd the Form, the Extent, and the Air of managing theirs, that to consider the modern Hoop, in its Structure, Latitude, Conveniencies, and Inconveniencies, may seem only as a proper Appendix to the learned Dissertations already written on this copious subject" (75). The Connoisseur found these "strange revolutions" in female dress threatening not because of their seeming randomness, but rather because they implied a carefully calculated scheme of gender reversal: "Posterity may perhaps see without surprise our ladies strut around in breeches, while our men waddle in hoop-petticoats" (No. 36). If women could get away with wearing hoop petticoats, the article suggested, they could get away with anything.

To a society that expected (and sometimes demanded) rational ex- planations for all phenomena, the hoop presented a frustrating void. In 1709, The Tatler claimed to be "very much disposed to be offended" by the "new and unac- countable Fashion" (No. 110). The Spectator remarked that "as we do not yet hear any particular use in this petticoat . . . we are wonderfully at a loss about it" (No. 127). A mock letter to Pope Clement the Eighth in The Guardian described an invention "which .. will puzzle your Infallibility to discover the Use of it. Not to keep you in suspense, it is what we call in this Country a Hooped-Petticoat" (No. 140). In 1717, the Weekly Journal opined that "it would puzzle the quickest invention to find out one tolerable convenience" in the hoop petticoat: "What skill and management is required to reduce one of these circles within the limits of a chair, or to find space for two in a chariot; and what precautions must a modest female take even to enter at the doors of a private family without obstruction; Then a vivacious damsel cannot turn herself round in a room a little inconsiderately without oversetting everything like a whirlwind" (quoted in Fairholt 1:358). After the introduction of the oblong hoop, London Magazine rather smugly noted that "the ladies have found some inconvenience surely in the circular hoops, that they have chang'd it to that extensive oblong This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 14 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDTES 30 / 1 form they now wear" (75). But even after this modification, the author continued, "it were to be wish'd, that the Sex in general would introduce a more reasonable Fashion for Coats, and confine them within the Bounds of Decency and Moderation" (76). The hoop petticoat was finally abandoned altogether in favor of more comfortable, less obtrusive styles, as The Connoisseur observed in 1754: "The hoop has, indeed, lost much of its credit in the female world, and has suffered much from the innovation of short sacks and negligees" (No. 36). It was unnecessary to point out that the hoop had never held any credit in the male world.

Undoubtedly, hoops were inconvenient, and sometimes even dangerous. One elderly Frenchwoman, Louise de Bussy, died when she fell while trying on paniers.18 The great size of the hoop necessitated modifications in carriages and doorways and increased the physical distance between people, or, alternately, increased crowding. Women often had to enter rooms sideways. Small railings sprung up around tabletops to prevent objects from being knocked off by wayward hoops.19 Hoops were discouraged at large assemblies and for physical activities such as walking or dancing. A printed announcement (in Faulkner's Journal) of the first performance of Handel's The Messiah on April 13, 1742, requested "the favour of the ladies not to come with hoops" (quoted in Ewing 38). At a court ball in 1780, "the ladies wore such large hoops that one of them kept as much room as four people. ... When the princes wanted to do the Allemande they could not reach the ladies' hands."20 In addition, although airy hoops kept women cool in summer months, they exposed their legs to the cold in winter. The hoop's enormity prohibited any covering but a short cloak; for warmth, a fur tippet and fur muff were also necessary.21 While the satirists certainly expressed some valid criticisms, they only reiterated what was already painfully obvious to men and women alike.

One of the most common complaints against the hoop petticoat was that it was unnatural or "monstrous," a serious, if vague charge in an age which revered nature and considered woman its zenith. The Tatler was the first to decry "this monstrous invention," with the caveat:

I would not be understood that... I am an Enemy to the proper Ornaments of the Fair Sex. On the contrary, as the Hand of Nature has poured on them such a Profusion of Charms and Graces, and sent them into the World more amiable and finished than the rest of her Works; so I would have them bestow upon themselves all the additional Beauties that Art can supply them with, provided it does not interfere with, disguise, or pervert, those of Nature. (No. 116)

The author further described woman as "a beautiful Romantick animal" appropri- ately adorned by "Furs and Feathers, Pearls and Diamonds, Ores and Silks," natural products, all. "Every part of Nature [shall] furnish out its Share towards the Embel- lishment of a Creature that is the most consummate work of it," he concluded. Cun- ningly, the author tempered his critique of female fashion by shifting the emphasis of his rhetoric to eulogize the sex's "consummate" charms. The Spectator also found the hoop petticoat "monstrous," and feared that "if one of the present Petticoats happens to be hung up in any repository of curiosities" it might betray to future generations the embarrassing fact that eighteenth-century women "made themselves monstrous This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CHRISMAN / Unhoop the Fair Sex 15 to appear amiable" (No. 127). The Guardian likewise reviled the "monstrous Fash- ion," and a mid-century poem, "The Female Fancy's Garland," featured the refrain, "hoop'd petticoats, monstrous petticoats, bouncing hoop'd petticoats" (No. 115; quoted in Waugh 16). In 1717, the Weekly Journal stated the enlightened case against the hoop petticoat: "Nothing can be imagined more unnatural, and consequently less agreeable" (quoted in Fairholt 1:358). Indeed, the hoop was considered not only "unnatural," but pointedly perverse.

But if Mother Nature reigned supreme in eighteenth-century En- gland, that increasingly industrial society considered technology her consort. Repre- senting the triumph of masculine intellect over feminine feeling, technology was an apt metaphor for criticizing the hoop petticoat. When the hoop was not "monstrous," it was dangerously mechanical. Significantly, in satirical scenarios, the hoop petticoat was frequently cast not as a garment, but as a machine or architectural structure. The Guardian referred to the hoop petticoat as "a certain Female Machine" (No. 140). The Weekly Journal echoed the metaphor in its discussion of "these machines" (quoted in Fairholt 1:358). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term "machine" could apply to a coach, boat, or other vehicle as well as a mechanical device. A Weekly Journal of 1718 employed a vehicular metaphor: "When a slender virgin stands upon a basis so exorbitantly wide, she resembles a funnel, a figure of no great elegancy; and I have seen many fine ladies of a low stature, who, when they sail in their hoops about an apartment, look like children in go-carts" (quoted in Fairholt 1:358). The metaphor infantilized women as it censured their presumptuous behavior. In addition, "machine" was slang for penis or condom, suggesting that mechanization was considered an exclusively, intrinsically masculine process, if not that the hoop petticoat itself was perceived as some sort of phallic interloper or sexual barrier.

The hoop was no more acceptable on architectural terms. Hoops violated the eighteenth-century's classical aesthetic ideal, not because they distorted the female body, but because they did so disproportionately. The Tatler pointed out that the "ancient Mode" of the ruff and farthingale made "their upper and lower Parts of their Bodies appear proportionable; whereas the Figure of a Woman in the present Dress bears ... the Figure of a Cone" (No. 118). When they first appeared, hoops were balanced, visually, by the voluminous hairstyles then in vogue. But as wigs shrunk and finally disappeared altogether (if only temporarily) in the early eighteenth century, the female body was thrown out of proportion, emphasizing the exag- gerated scale of the hoop. The Spectator complained that "contrary to all rules of architecture," women "widen the foundations at the same time that they shorten the superstructure" (No. 127). Of "this new-fashioned Rotunda," the writer remarked: "I cannot but think of the old philosopher, who after having entered into an Egyptian TEMPLE, and looked about for the idol of the place, at length discovered a little black monkey inshrined in the midst of it, upon which he could not forbear crying out, to the great scandal of the worshippers, 'What a magnificent palace is here for such a ridiculous inhabitant!'" (No. 127). By linking the pyramid-like hoop with an actual pyramid, The Spectator succinctly transferred the trappings of faddish Egyptology-idolatry, hedonism, megalomania, and otherness-to the hoop and its wearer, simultaneously disparaging all three. The Tatler, too, referred to a woman wearing hoops as "the Inhabitant of the Garment," which resembled "a kind of Silken

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Rotunda, in its Form not unlike the Cupolo of St. Paul's" (No. 116). And London Magazine challenged "the most learned Connisseurs in female Architecture" to discover the origins of the hoop (75). By framing the hoop petticoat as a structural or mechanical device, its critics indirectly characterized women as incompetent "archi- tects" and "mechanics." Women rejected their "natural" shape-and, by extension, their natural function, procreation-and failed in inappropriate, masculine roles, of- fending both the sense and sensibility of the age.

The invention of the hoop occurred simultaneously with the invention of female fashion as we know it; that is, transitory, expensive, and often irratio- nal. In 1713, The Guardian observed: "As Words grow old, and new ones enrich the Language, so there is a constant Succession of Dress. ... The whole Woman throughout ... is changed from Top to Toe in the period of five Years" (No. 149). Amid these "constant" transformations, the hoop was a rare mainstay. In 1746, on a visit to court, Mrs. Delany, observed:

There is such a variety in the manner of dress, that I don't know what to tell you is the fashion; the only thing that seems general are hoops of an enormous size, and most people wear vast winkers to their heads. They are now come to such an extravagance in those two par- ticulars, that I expect soon to see the other extreme of thread-paper heads and no hoops, and from appearing like so many blown blad- ders we shall look like so many bodkins stalking about.22

The lady herself disliked "the tubs of hoops," but only because she was afraid of being thought a slave to fashion: "I keep within bounds, endeavouring to avoid all particularities of being too much in or out of fashion" (Delany 339). Evidently, fashion could be obeyed or resisted, but never ignored. In the eighteenth century, perhaps for the first time, women were what they wore.

As women acquired limited financial power over the course of the century, fashion became a means of displaying economic as well as sexual status. Clothing was the first mass commodity to cross both class and gender barriers; sud- denly, more women had more money to spend on clothes. Fashion's accelerated cycle of consumption was self-perpetuating. Along with increased spending by the lower classes came increased spending by the aristocracy, newly threatened with the loss- or, rather, the rabble's gain-of their distinctive standard of living.23 The hoop petticoat acted as a barometer of class tensions, its swelling dimensions subtly mirroring the extent to which the aristocracy felt it necessary to distinguish themselves from the masses. Nevertheless, The Spectator complained in 1711 that "the strutting Petticoat smooths all distinctions.... Should this fashion get among the ordinary people, our public ways would be so crowded, that we should want street-room" (No. 127). That is exactly what happened.

Indeed, "ordinary" serving women were a crucial channel for the rapid popularization of new styles, of which the ever-changing hoop was perpetually the newest and most popular. Before the invention of fashion magazines in the mid- eighteenth century, styles spread only as fast as they could be relayed by word of

This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CHRISMAN / Unhoop the Fair Sex 17 mouth. Servants provided a direct link between the upper and lower classes, the city and the countryside. Thus, female servants were likely the first of the lower classes to wear hoops, as they often copied their mistresses' wardrobes or inherited their cast- offs (McKendrick 59). A country-bred maid might pass on the idea-or, very likely, the actual garment-to a rustic relation. The hoop's visibility made it a convenient symbol for lower-class (specifically, female lower-class) pretensions to gentility, at- tracting even more critics. In 1743, Mrs. Delany boasted: "My new maid promises very well, and she has a sprightliness without pertness that pleases very well, and wears no hoop" (quoted in Waugh 59). Daniel Defoe's 1725 pamphlet, "Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business," cited the hoop petticoat as evidence of incipient class mobility: "She must have a hoop too, as well as her mistress. . . . In short, plain country-Joan is now turn'd into a fine London-madam."24 And a character in Susannah Centlivre's 1722 play, The Artifice, lamented that her maid "had not liv'd with me three weeks before she sew'd three Penny canes round the bottom of her shift" (Act 3, Scene 1). Foreign visitors were shocked to see English agricultural laborers in hoops, knee breeches, bonnets, and other aristocratic forms of dress, and it is likely that many Englishmen shared their sentiments (McKendrick 62). But no single article of clothing generated as much and as violent criticism as the hoop petticoat.

One specific satirical text delineates the distinctly economic forces that motivated many of the hoop's critics: The Tatler's mock trial of the hoop petticoat, which comprises the entire issue of January 5, 1710. Two weeks earlier, the journal's pseudonymous author, Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., claimed to have received "a Female Petition, signed by several Thousands, praying, That I would not any longer defer giving Judgment in the Case of the Petticoat, many of them having put off the making new Clothes, till such Time as they know what Verdict will pass upon it" (No. 113). He promised to give "the final Determination of that Matter" in a future issue (No. 113). With the aid of a "Jury of Matrons"-a body customarily employed only in trials of a prurient nature-Bickerstaff sets out in Tatler No. 116 to "judge" the hoop.

Bickerstaff's bias against the hoop petticoat is evident long before any "evidence" is presented. First, there is the issue's epigraph, taken from line 344 of Ovid's Remedia Amoris: "Pars minima est ipsa Puella sui," or, "A woman is the least part of herself."25 By this rule, the hoop is the greatest part of a woman, anchoring her in a physical and symbolic space she could not otherwise occupy. Next, the "Crimi- nal" is unable to enter "the Court," because her petticoat is too large to fit through the doorway. Bickerstaff orders that the woman be "stripped of her Incumbrances" and the petticoat propped up on an umbrella-like "Engine" designed to "show the Garment in its utmost Circumference." In effect, this arrangement allows Bickerstaff to view the underside of the petticoat, a subtle satirical commentary on the masculine impulse to look up women's skirts. Finally, "the Person that belonged to the Petti- coat" enters unimpeded and explains "that notwithstanding it was her own Petticoat, she should be very glad to see an Example made of it; and that she wore it for no other Reason, but that she had a Mind to look as big and burly as other Persons of her Quality; That she had kept out of it as long as she could, and till she began to appear little in the Eyes of all her Acquaintance; That if she laid it aside, People would think she was not made like other Women." Truly, a woman is "the least part of herself" if This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 18 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 30 / 1 her femininity is defined by the size and shape of her petticoat! Bickerstaff concedes that he gives "great Allowances to the Fair Sex upon Account of the Fashion," and quickly absolves the "very beautiful young Damsel," transferring any "crimes" to the hoop itself.

Having dispensed with the obligatory mockery of the hoop petticoat's size and wearer, Bickerstaff proceeds to the crux of the trial, and the essay. The author's economic principles enter in the form of the "Council for the Petticoat," a group called in to defend "their Client" against "the popular Cry which was raised against it." Their defense is a masterful blend of capitalism and patriotism, hinging on three separate industries rather than arguments. First, they cite "the great Benefit that might arise to our Woollen Manufactury from this Invention, which was calculated as fol- lows: The common Petticoat has not above Four Yards in the Circumference; whereas this . . . had more in the Semi-diameter; so that by allowing it Twenty four Yards in the Circumference, the Five Millions of Woollen Petticoats . . . would amount to Thirty Millions of those of the ancient Mode." In addition, they point out, "the De- mand for Cords, and the Price of 'em, were much risen since this Fashion came up," since cords were used to stiffen and shape the hoop petticoat. Finally, the Council members mention "the great consumption of Whale-bone which would be occasioned by the present Fashion, and the Benefit which would thereby accrue to that Branch of the British trade." They conclude by implying that the hoop also serves as a safeguard of female virtue.

But Bickerstaff rejects their arguments on their own terms, counter- ing that while the hoop generates mercantile revenue, it depletes family fortunes and oppresses the poor. In addition to "the great and additional Expence which such Fash- ions would bring upon Fathers and Husbands," women themselves "could never expect to have any Money in the Pocket, if they laid out so much on the Petticoat." In response to the Council's petitions from rope-makers and whalers, Bickerstaff pre- sents a petition signed by "the women of several Persons of Quality"-i.e., ladies' maids--complaining "that since the Introduction of this Mode, their respective Ladies had (instead of bestowing on 'em their Cast-Gowns) cut them into Shreds, and mixed them with the Cordage and Buckram, to compleat the stiffening of their Under- Petticoats." The hoop petticoat is pronounced "a Forfeiture" and sentenced to be cut up into several small, hoopless petticoats, to be distributed to the needy. Although Bickerstaff insists that he "did not make that Judgment for the Sake of filthy Lucre," the trial both reflects and reinforces the hoop's central place in England's economic scheme.

The hoop petticoat acquired considerable economic meaning over the course of the eighteenth century, but it functioned primarily as a highly-charged sexual symbol. Indeed, it seemed to attract as many men as it repulsed. While the hoop effectively hid the natural outline of the female body, it could be upset at any moment, exposing the wearer's near-nudity beneath. The provocative effect of the exposed ankle or leg was a source of both moral outrage and ribald jests throughout the century. Both stances were expressed in a poem printed in The Gentleman's Maga- zine in 1745:

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How their steps they reveal, and oblige the lewd eye With the leg's pretty turn, and delicate thigh, While the modern free hoops, so ample and wide, Up-lift the fair smock, with an impudent pride, And betray the sweet graces they chastely shou'd hide! (No. 15, 369)

Although they could happen unexpectedly, and often did, these "accidents" were sometimes premeditated. It was even considered fashionable to give one's hoops a slight tilt when walking, suggesting that women were not averse to showing their ankles, and possibly more (Ewing 39). After all, it was well-known in the eighteenth century that hoops, though dangerously "lewd" and "free," were the only means of showing off a woman's "sweet graces," reason enough for any woman to deliberately "up-lift" her skirts (London Magazine 75). In 1753, The Salisbury Journal advised: "Make your petticoats short, that a hoop eight yards wide I May decently show how your garters are ty'd."26 An anonymous ballad added: "For husbands are gotten this way to be sure, / Men's eyes and men's hearts they so neatly allure."27 One historian describes the hoop's convenient conjunction with another uniquely eighteenth-century trend: "In the pseudo-simplicity and elaborate naivete of the time it was also a favourite diversion of young men to send their young ladies flying gaily through the air on swings. Before this exploit was undertaken the perilous hoop skirt was tied tightly round the wearer's ankles, usually with the man's hat-band, but the possibility of an accident was an intriguing accompaniment of this sport" (Ewing 39). The ever-present "possibility of an accident"-in this or any sport-gave the hoop its irresistible (and controversial) erotic appeal.

It is difficult for modern sensibilities to appreciate the wide-ranging sexual connotations of the hoop petticoat. First and most important, it permitted the public's earliest views of female feet and legs. As Anne Hollander has conjectured: "Being able to see up a woman's skirt-so long and voluminous for so many centuries-must have been a masculine, if not an artistic, preoccupation of long standing. Since women wore no underpants, the sight of the nude leg undoubtedly carried rather intense associations with undefended nudity higher up."28 Indeed, eighteenth-century artists were the first to represent "suavely idealized, seminude subject matter permit- ting legs to show under raised skirts-real skirts or real smocks, not artistic drapery- conveyed with serious painterly commitment" (Hollander 218). Jean Honore Fragonard's 1768 painting, La balancoire (The Swing), is a classic example. In addition, the hooped body was a paradigmatically sexual body. By widening the hips while accentuating the small, tightly corseted waist, the hoop suggested both fertility and virginity, two characteristics universally valued in women.

The hoop petticoat was simultaneously sexually attractive and sexually restrictive. Physically barring access to the sexual organs, the hoop petticoat protected women from unwanted amorous advances while placating men anxious about "the preservation of reproductive property and of the legitimacy of the patriline" (Mackie 35). In 1711, The Spectator noted that "several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex has of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made use of to keep us at a distance," and admitted that "a woman's honour cannot be better intrenched that after this manner, in circle within circle, amidst such a vari- This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 20 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 30 / 1 ety of outworks and lines of circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in whalebone is sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow" (No. 127). London Magazine likewise observed in defense of hoops "that they serv'd to keep men at a proper Distance" (75). This is exactly their role in Samuel Richardson's 1747 novel, Clarissa. In one key scene, the heroine is mortified when a suitor draws his chair "so near mine ... that he pressed upon my hoop-I was so offended ... that I removed to another chair."" Her friend, Anna Howe, sympathizes: "I desire my hoop may have its full circumference. All they're good for, that I know, is to clean dirty shoes and to keep ill-mannered fellows at a distance" (Letter 74). Significantly, the kidnapped Clarissa sheds her hoop in captivity, symbolizing her defenselessness (Let- ter 334). The "Council for the Petticoat" in The Tatler's mock trial "gently touched upon the Weight and Unweildiness of the Garment, which they insinuated might be of great Use to preserve the Honour of Families"; that is, by curbing illicit sexual activity (No. 116). The explicit distinction between "ill-bred" or "ill-mannered" men and "honorable" women and families in these passages betrays the male writers' genteel backgrounds and their underlying concern for the moral and genetic status quo. Just as no "well-bred" man would violate an "honorable" woman, it was unthinkable that an "honorable" woman might permit the advances of an "ill-bred" or "ill-mannered" man.

But while satirists recognized the prohibitive nature of the hoop petticoat, many were reluctant to embrace it as a guarantor of chastity. On the contrary, the hoop became a symbol of female sexual autonomy and artifice, or, alternately, of male anxiety about those threats. To the defense that "these wide bottoms . . are airy, and very proper for the season," The Spectator answered: "It is well known we have not had a more moderate summer these many years, so that it is certain the heat they complain of cannot be in the weather" (No. 127). Clearly, the author has sexual "heat" in mind; the hoop was thus identified as the typical guise- or disguise-of lascivious women. In "The Rape of the Lock," Alexander Pope ap- pointed "fifty chosen Sylphs" to guard Belinda's petticoat, explaining: "Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, / Though stiff with hoops, and arm'd with ribs of whale" (2.117-22). The heroine's fan and watch, by contrast, rated only one sylph apiece. In 1741, London Magazine punned that "many Ladies, who wore 'hoops' of the greatest Circumference were not of the most impregnable Virtue" (75). The Fe- male Tatler, a satirical journal written by "A Society of Ladies," played on this anxiety with the following bogus advertisement, published one week after The Tatler's mock trial of 1709: "Lost... from under one of the modish petticoats of twelve yard circumference..,. a gem called Honour, supposed to be taken by [a man] who, whilst the lady was descending from the balcony of her coach, very dexterously cast himself into one of the folds of her coat, and lay concealed till Jehoe whipped forwards" (No. 82). Unlike their male counterparts, the anonymous authors of The Female Tatler blame the hoop's failure on masculine wiles, rather than feminine weakness, remind- ing their readers that it took two to topple the hoop.

When The Spectator complained that the hoop "smooths all distinctions," the "distinctions" in question were not purely economic. In addition to equalizing the upper and lower classes, the hoop "levels the mother with the daugh-

This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:42:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CHRISMAN I Unhoop the Fair Sex 21 ter; and sets maids and matrons, wives and widows, upon the same bottom" (No. 127). By blurring the physical "distinctions" between virgins and non-virgins, the hoop, it was argued, encouraged moral ambiguity as well. This "confounding of the conventional signs of sexual status, experience, and availability" could confuse men and compromise women (Mackie 36). The hoop's corrupting tendencies might not have been considered such a threat had the crimes they inspired been punishable. But the hoop acted as both motive and alibi, inciting women to immorality and then hiding its evidence. The Spectator offered a roundabout argument to this effect:

There are men of superstitious tempers, who look upon the Hoop Petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some will have that it portends the downfal of the French king, and observe that the Farthingal appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of the opinion that it foretels battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same prognostication as the tale of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt to think it is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world rather than going out of it. (No. 127)

In other words, the hoop (in its original bell-shaped incarnation) made women-all women-look pregnant.3" Of course, The Spectator did not state this outright, but alluded to pregnancy in a series of broad euphemisms: "The first time I saw a lady dressed in one of these Petticoats, I could not forbear blaming her . . . for walking abroad when she was SO NEAR HER TIME, but soon recovered myself out of my error, when I found all the modish part of the sex as FAR GONE as herself" (No. 127). The Tatler concurred that at the time of the hoop's introduction, "all those of the Fair Sex began to appear pregnant who had ran any Hazard of it; as was mani- fested by a particular Swelling in the Petticoats of several Ladies in and about this great City" (No. 110). If the mere sight of a pregnant woman was morally offensive to Englishmen, the sight of so many pregnant-looking women at once must have been shocking; the fact that these women deliberately made themselves look that way only compounded the offense.

Significantly, The Spectator's complaint was not with the garment itself, but with the fact that "so many well-shaped innocent virgins" were "bloated up, and waddling up and down like big-bellied women" (No. 127). The author attributed the style to "some crafty women" who have "betrayed their companions into Hoops, that they might make them accessory to their own concealments, and by that means escape the censure of the world" (No. 127). Erin Mackie points out that this theory is "not just a paranoid satirical fantasy" (Mackie 36). At the time, as now, no one knew the exact origins of the hoop petticoat, and many earnestly believed that it had been invented to disguise pregnancy. Ultimately, however, very few satirists ac- cepted the notion that all the women who wore hoops were actually pregnant. In The Tatler's mock trial, Isaac Bickerstaff rejected the hoop in part because of "the great Temptation it might give to Virgins, of acting in Security like married Women, and by that Means give a Check to Matrimony, an Institution always encouraged by wise Societies" (No. 116). Acting "like married Women" did not necessarily result in pregnancy, but in chronic promiscuity and the devaluation of marriage. Whether the hoop concealed or simply mimicked pregnancy, it created a false, undesirable appearance and was therefore immoral.

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While the hoop petticoat's portrayal as both an obstacle to sex and a passport to promiscuity may seem contradictory, these criticisms are firmly rooted in a single, revolutionary principle: female sexual autonomy. The wearer alone determined whether the hoop acted as a barrier or an invitation. As London Magazine lamented, "a Lady within that Circle, seem'd to govern in a spacious Verge sacred to herself" (75). To women, the concept must have been a liberating one, which more than justified the ridicule and inconvenience that inevitably accompanied the hoop. For men, however, the hoop represented a female-dominated sexual and social space, which they could neither share nor control. Their only weapon against this female fortress was satire, and it proved ineffectual.

Though the arguments against the hoop petticoat were not effec- tive, they were (and still are) significant because the satirists felt compelled and, indeed, entitled to act on them. "I neither can, nor will allow it," decreed the Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., at the conclusion of The Tatler's mock trial of 1709 (No. 116). But neither could he prevent it. Shortly thereafter, a "letter" to Bickerstaff complained that "in Contempt of your Judgment ... the Ladies design to go on in that Dress" (No. 118). A year later, the author himself admitted that his "Success with the Petti- coat is not so great," but expressed confidence that he would "in a little Time put an effectual Stop to" the spread of the fashion (No. 162). The Tatler ceased publication in 1711, with no further mention of the hoop. Just two years after the hoop's reported debut, a letter to The Spectator begged its author "to Unhoop the fair sex, and cure this fashionable tympany that is got among them" (No. 127). "Tympany," meaning a swelling of the abdomen, was a common eighteenth-century medical term, which also served as a euphemism for pregnancy, and for pride (OED). Thus, it neatly-but ineffectively-summarized both the aesthetic and ethical arguments against the hoop and its wearers. "In Contradiction to whatever [The Spectator] has said they still resolutely persist in this Fashion," The Guardian complained in 1713 (No. 114). The combined efforts of England's greatest satirists-and moralists-failed to deflate the hoop. In the end, it took a century and a king to do so.

NOTES

1. From "The Farthingale Reviewed, or, More Work for the Cooper," quoted in Norah Waugh, Cor- sets and Crinolines (1954; reprint, New York: Routledge/Theatre Arts Books, 1991), 55.

2. The terms "petticoat," "coat," and "skirt" were interchangeable in eighteenth-century England. In the interest of clarity, I shall use these terms in their modern senses, when possible, to distinguish between the actual hooped garment, the underclothing, and the outer apparel.

3. E W. Fairholt, Costume in England, vol. 1 (London: George Bell and Sons, 1896), 372.

4. Erin Mackie, "Lady Credit and the Strange Case of the Hoop-Petticoat," College Literature 20 (1993): 27-43.

5. Ernest Crawley, "The Sexual Background of Dress," Dress, Adornment, and the Social Order, ed. Mary Ellen Roach and Joanne Bubolz (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965), 73.

6. Elizabeth Ewing, Dress and Undress: A history of women's underwear (New York: Drama Book Specialists, 1978), 26.

7. Francois Boucher, 20,000 Years of Fashion (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1983), 205.

8. Doreen Yarwood, The Encyclopedia of World Costume (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978), 162.

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9. Elizabeth Ewing, Fashion in Underwear (London: B. T. Barnsford, 1971), 32. All subsequent citations refer to this text.

10. London Magazine, volume 10, number 2, page 75.

11. Along with whaling, hoop-making became a specialized trade in the first half of the eighteenth century; hoops were custom-made for individual customers or supplied to dress shops. The hoop-maker often made the whole petticoat: by mid-century, fashionable hoops were "made of the richest damask, trimmed with gold and silver, 14 guineas a hoop," according to Mrs. Delany. Quoted in Anne Buck, Dress in Eighteenth-Century England (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979), 163.

12. F. W. Fairholt, Costume in England, vol. 2 (London: George Bell and Sons, 1896), 256.

13. C. Willet Cunnington, Phillis Cunnington and Charles Beard, A Dictionary of English Costume (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1960), 168.

14. Valerie Cumming, Royal Dress: The image and the reality, 1580 to the present day (London: Batsford, 1989), 84.

15. Alan Mansfield, Ceremonial Costume (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1980), 103.

16. Michael Ketcham points out that although the letters in The Spectator ostensibly represent diverse opinions, they were often fabricated or substantially edited by author Joseph Addison: "The published Spectator may be seen as an actual dialectic of opinions ... or it may be seen as a fabrication, where all responses to The Spectator are The Spectator." This practice was typical of contemporary journals. Trans- parent Designs: Reading, Performance, and Form in the Spectator Papers (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1985), 132.

17. "Hoop petticoat," Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 ed. All subsequent citations refer to this edition.

18. Millia Davenport, The Book of Costume (New York: Crown, 1948), 749.

19. Phyllis G. Tortora and Keith Eubank, Survey of Historic Costume: A History of Western Dress (New York: Fairchild Publications, 1994), 233.

20. Quoted in Phillis Cunnington, Costumes of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century (Boston: Plays, Inc., 1970), 93.

21. Aileen Ribeiro, A Visual History of Costume: The Eighteenth Century (New York: Drama Book Publishers, 1983), 61.

22. Mary (Granville) Delany, The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany, ed. Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1879), 339.

23. Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb, The Birth of A Consumer Society: The Commer- cialization of 18th-Century England (London: Europa Publications Limited, 1982), 55.

24. Quoted in Bridget Hill, Eighteenth-Century Women: An Anthology (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984), 238.

25. J. H. Mozley, trans., Remedia Amoris by Ovid, in "The Art of Love" and Other Poems (Cam- bridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969).

26. F. W. Fairholt, Costume in England: A History of Dress to the end of the Eighteenth Century, ed. H. A. Dillon (London: George Bell and Sons, 1885), 375.

27. George Clinch, English Costume: From Prehistoric Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (London: Methuen & Co., 1909), 129.

28. Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1993), 218.

29. Samuel Richardson, Clarissa; or The History of a Young Lady, ed. Angus Ross (New York: Pen- guin Books, 1985), Letter 16.

30. I do not intend to contest this claim. Although contemporary illustrations understandably downplay the extent to which hoops mimicked pregnancy, the comparison surfaces in numerous eighteenth-century texts, satirical and otherwise. Indeed, the hoop petticoat was revived in the nineteenth century-in the slightly modernized form of the crinoline-so the women of Queen Victoria's court could perform their social duties while pregnant.

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