By the early 1860’s, under the innovations of Charles Worth, Eugenie’s designer and a whole variety of cultural and economic factors including Victoria’s desire to help her lower classes by manufacturing everythin in England, and Eugenie’s desire to have everything made in France – the crinoline hoop became huge.
1862-1865, the peak of America’s Civil War was also the peak of the huge skirt.
(Portrait: Maria Feodorovna of Russia in Mid Victorian style)