The Crinoline
A birdcage-shaped skirt supported by a scaffolding of whale-bone hoops, the crinoline had caught on for a number of reasons: its width forced women to stand far apart, and so each was shown to greater advantage. Lighter in weight than the petticoats it replaced, it made a woman's skirt seem to hover around her, skimming the floor as she walked, as if she were on wheels. The crinoline was also considered wildly sexy, since, in a strong wind, the hoops would tilt to reveal a woman's ankles and calves; and it kept men at their distance (the hoops were so wide that the old custom of a lady taking her escort's arm had to be abandoned for the time being). A woman was made to seem enticing and, at the same time, unattainable; it was a foolproof combination. The crinoline gave expression to the Second Empire's opulence, sensuality and decorum. Women adopted it enthusiastically. Of all the styles that came and went in course of Eugenie's reign, the crinoline was in vogue the longest, for almost ten years.
When, in 1869, Worth succeeded in dissuading women from their hoop skirts, something more than the silhouette changed. In their narrow new dresses, women seemed suddenly to have grown thin. Money was tighter, the Mexican campaign had failed, Austrian troops menaced France from the east. Within a year, became the Empire toppled- The Avenue de L'Imperatrice became the Avenue du Bois. In 1870, the Austrian army invaded Paris and burned the Palace of the Tuilleries. Three years later, a contractor appointed to clear the site invited collectors to come and take- away what remained ed. Worth hauled off Corinthian columns, statues, entire,:,-.sections of facade with the windows and balconies intact, and installed them in his garden at Suresnes, where he made his home for the rest of, his life amid the Second Empire's ruins. Meanwhile, newly rich Americans were busy outfitting their week-old mansions with French porcelains, Italian statuary, suits of armor, eighteenth--century sedan chairs, Gobelin tapestries, Rembrandts, Vermeers, marble fireplaces, bronze doors, staircases lifted from a doge's palace. They wanted the best of everything, not only of their own time but of all time. For clothes, they went to the House of Worth, where they could continue to buy into the glory of the Second Empire, long after it had ended. For Worth went right on designing gowns with an, air of self-importance, m aggrandizing migm that had served the Empress so well.