The First Bustle Period
1869 - 1876
During the middle of the Victorian era, women had worn hoop skirts or crinolines from three to six feet in diameter under their skirts. The shape of that hoop slowly evolved from a round circumference to an oval one with the woman standing towards the front of the oval. As the 1860s drew to a close, the collapse of the crinoline heralded a fleeting empire-inspired style. It had a slightly high-waisted bodice and a gored skirt and it did not endure, despite the favor of Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III of France. Having popularized the cage crinoline at court, she is said to have encouraged its demise in favor of the style redolent of the glorious days of the first empire. But fashionable women felt the lack of crinoline and soon returned to it, albeit in a much smaller version. Small horsehair frills or tournures were worn with it to fill out the silhouette behind. The alternative skirt support was the horsehair petticoat or jupon, a gored underskirt, which also could be worn with a tournure. The crinoline did not remain small for long but began to increase in size, this time, not at the hem, but behind at hip-level, creating a bustle. By 1870, this was evident in the fashionable silhouette. The Victorian bustle, sometimes known as the Grecian Bend was first in fashion between 1870 and 1875.
The bustle enjoyed two periods of popularity, in the early 1870s and in the 1880s. At no other time before or after has it been worn in quite such an obvious way or by so many women. Many early 1870s bustles looked very much like a small crinoline, with a swelling behind. Half crinolines (also called tournures or crinolettes) also emerged, consisting of a back half of a skirt with steels and with lacing to tie across the front, to make the bustle effect more pronounced. These are what we tend to picture now as true bustles. The new attention to the "behind" was considered quite provocative. Skirts were more than simply back-weighted, they emphasized an area of the body not previously regarded by Victorian fashion.
The empire period greatly influenced the fashions of the late 1860s. It was rivaled by an eighteenth century interest, which produced a number of Louis Quinze, Pompadour and Marie Antoinette articles of dress. The Marie Antoinette Fichu, for example, was a feature of many costumes. With the fall of "empire" the eighteenth century reigned supreme for most of the '70s and '80s. But, undoubtedly, the greatest influence on fashion in the last decades of the nineteenth century was Empress Eugenie's favorite, Charles Frederick Worth, the father of couture. The fashionable women all over the world flocked to Paris to purchase his one-of-a-kind creations. Worth was the first creator of clothing who became internationally renowned not as simply a maker of clothes but as a designer. From this time on, fashion would move at a pace that required considerable expense to keep up with it. Though the last quarter of the nineteenth century saw a considerable rise in consumerism and the number of people who could indulge in it, fashion would be led by designers as well as socialites.
"What, for instance, could be prettier, or more suitable for a lady, than a black alpaca skirt looped up like a window-drapery above a scarlet serge underskirt, the whole surmounted by a wide-sleeved black poplin jacket with ruffled muslin under-sleeves, and a flat porkpie hat like the one Empress Eugenie was represented as wearing at Biarritz? "But now there seemed to be no definite fashions. Everybody wore what they pleased, and it was as difficult to look like a lady in those tight perpendicular polonaises bunched up at the back that the Paris dress-makers were sending over as in the outrageously low square-cut evening gowns which Mrs. St. George had viewed with disapproval at the Opera in New York. The fact was you could hardly tell a lady now from an actress, or -- er -- the other kind of woman; and society at Saratoga, now that all the best people were going to Newport, had grown as mixed and confusing as the fashions."
~~Chapter I , The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton
A fashionable gown from the first Victorian bustle era,
Harper's Bazar, June 20, 1874
By 1867 with the fullness bunched up to the back of the skirt creating a polonaise style, crinolines and cages suddenly disappeared evolving into tournures or bustles. The bustles supported accentuated drapes on the hips. After 1868 Worth's overskirt really caught on in England and contrasting underskirts and gown linings were all revealed as the over top skirt was divided or turned back. Other top skirts were called aprons and they were also draped making the wearer look like a piece of elaborate upholstery. Rounder waistlines were fashionable and waistlines even began to rise very slightly.
At first women wore bustles built into petticoats or small hoop skirts, but by 1871 the majority of bustles were separate from the crinoline and came in a variety of shapes, sizes, and materials. They could be made of pads, springs, ruffles, wires, or curved boning. Most of them were homemade. Despite the variety of looks, bustles from the early 1870s usually were shallow, covered the sides and back, and ended at the bottom of the hips. By 1875 soft polonaise bustle styles were becoming so extreme that the soft fullness began to drop down the back of the garment and form itself into a tiered, draped and frilled train. The soft polonaise style bustle styles were replaced by Princess sheath garments without a waist seam with bodice and skirt cut in one. The Princess line sheath had a bodice line similar to the very tight fitting cuirasse bodices which had been getting longer and longer.
 
Two typical bustles from the early 1870s,
Harper’s Bazar, September 21, 1872
In September 1876 Harper’s Bazar announced that "All bouffant tournures [bustles] are abandoned." The year earlier bustles had already begun to deflate, and by the next year many fashionable women considered the bustle an optional garment. In 1876 the bustle had not disappeared completely yet, and the fishtail-style actually gained in popularity. As Harper’s Bazar noted after announcing the abandonment of large bustles, "The long slender bustle that holds the lower part of the skirt away from the feet will be retained." Demorest’s Magazine also noted the declining popularity of the bustle in the Fall of 1876, but added that "In reality, there is no figure that does not require, in the center of the back, the addition of some narrow and slightly projecting [bustle], which, gradually tapering out serves as a support to the drapery below." Demorest’s went on to explain their reasoning by writing "that otherwise there would be a falling in at the back, which would be very ungraceful, and in opposition to all present ideas."
The pattern for this red cashmere "fishtail" bustle was included in the August 8, 1874 issue of Harper’s Bazar.
References:
State Historical Society of Wisconsin
The Bustle, Fashion History
The Ladies Treasury
The information on this page is a compilation of many articles that we have placed together for your research. We felt that if we brought you this information this way, it will show you the vast research that we and others have done on the Bustle era. We will be adding two other bustle pages for the Middle Years and the End of the Bustle era. Please check back for updates.
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