History & culture

A silhouette in which the waist seam of a dress sits at or below the hip rather than the natural waistline, characteristic of the loose, boyish flapper styles of the 1920s.

A skirt cut as a full or partial circle of fabric so it falls in even flares from the waist, popularized with fitted bodices in the New Look-influenced fashions of the 1950s.

Loose trousers gathered at the ankle, worn under a shorter skirt and popularized by Amelia Bloomer in the 1850s as a practical, controversial alternative to restrictive Victorian dress.

A framework or padding worn under a skirt to add fullness and projection at the back, fashionable in two main phases during the 1870s and again in the mid-1880s.

A stiffened or hooped petticoat used to hold out a wide skirt; the cage crinoline of steel hoops, introduced around 1856, replaced heavy layered petticoats and dominated 1860s fashion.

A dress style with a high waistline gathered just below the bust and a slim, flowing skirt, fashionable in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and named for the Napoleonic era.

A hooped or padded understructure worn beneath skirts from the 15th to early 17th centuries to create a rigid conical or wheel-shaped silhouette, first developed in Spain.

A loose, straight-cut dress with a dropped waist and hemline typically at or above the knee, worn by young women of the 1920s who embraced a modern, active lifestyle.

A narrow ankle-length skirt so tight at the hem that it restricted the wearer's stride, a controversial fashion of the early 1910s associated with designer Paul Poiret.

A skirt held out in a dome or bell shape by a framework of hoops, worn under crinolines and, in earlier colonial and 18th-century forms, related to the farthingale and pannier.

Side hoops or pads worn at the hips under 18th-century skirts to extend width sideways while remaining flat front and back, especially fashionable in French court dress.