Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1857. A lot of hoopla over hoop skirts

From The Providence Journal of Aug. 6, 1857:

"It is known to those who are addicted to the luxury of early rising that, the planet Venus, now the morning star, looks unusually large at this time -- larger, brighter, and more beautiful than it ever appeared to us before. A country editor accounts for the fact by saying that Venus has taken to hoops."

In 1857, the latest women's fashion craze was "hoops" or hoop skirts, and The Journal became obsessed with the topic.

On the same day The Journal wondered whether the planet Venus had taken to wearing hoops, it also reported on what the trend had done for the trade of "whalebone," the tough, flexible material used to fashion the hoops.

When the hoop fashion came into vogue around the beginning of 1857, the United States had stocks of 2 million pounds of whalebone, which sold for 60 cents a pound. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 6, 1857, an additional 1.8 million pounds of whalebone had been imported, but almost all of the combined 3.8 million pounds had been sold, and the price was then about $1.20 a pound.

Godey's Lady's Book

In the late 1850s, hoop skirts were the latest womenıs fashion craze, and The Journal became obsessed with the topic. From the Aug. 7, 1857, Journal: "There is no harm, perhaps, in making fun of it, for no degree of ridicule can abolish a fashion, and no degree of reason can establish one."

On Aug. 7, The Journal defended -- sort of -- the hoop fashion:

"An immense amount of fun is made of the ladies' hoops, and all sorts of witticisms, from very good to execrably stupid, are expended upon their swelling dimensions and their boundless circumference. We do not join in the war upon crinoline. . . . The crinoline is light, graceful, according to the prevailing idea of grace, comfortable, and above all, healthful, and is worthy of all encouragement; yet there is no harm, perhaps, in making fun of it, for no degree of ridicule can abolish a fashion, and no degree of reason can establish one."

On Aug. 21, The Journal reported the fashion had gone to the extreme. In Paris, the diameter of well-dressed women had reached 12 feet, meaning their arms could not reach to people or things beyond the circumference of their dresses. To link arms when strolling with beaux, they had to use a looped handkerchief as an intermediary, and, at parties, waiters had to serve them food using trays attached to long sticks.