Old and New Styles of Crinolines

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 20, 25 January 1937, Page 11

Old and New Styles of Crinolines

Curls and hands and, to some extent, waists, have all come in again, and Winterhalter portraits no longer seem so inhumanely remote as was the case a decade or so ago. The Winterhalter portrait of the Empress Eugenie and her ladies in the Louvre have indeed all the prettiness which is gradually coming back to-day. Where the Winterhalter ladies cease to be comparable with those of to-day lies in the fact that the former were not 1 only not expected to move—they were positively prevented from doing so. While they looked lighter than was humanly possible, owing to the spring of the crinoline, they only swayed a little here and rocked a little there. Their shoes alone would have prevented them from taking long walks, and that Florence Nightingale managed to nurse is almost as much credit to her overcoming of material obstacles as those which were spiritual. A few years ago a revival in Paris of “La Dame aux Camelias" filled in all that the chinoline implied. It meant that Winterhalter ladies could only sit in one way, or their crinolines were liable to disgrace them by turning up like a swinging bell. Their hands had to be held in a particular way as though spread out upon a table. They had to endure weathers and chilly houses because it was difficult to wear anything warm. Underclothes were strictly limited, and a quilted petticoat was not of much use when it let in all the draughts in existence. The portraits imply a perpetual and windless summer during which curls were never displaced, complexions never beaten upon by weather, and balminess a matter of course for these draughty clothes.