..completely new inventions! Designer Worth with the other Parisian fashion houses at the time were INVENTING the style from nothing. Worth was taking what had been and pinching and pulling and draping to try to come up with something new. While we see bustles as logical (though somewhat odd) parts of fashion history, one must remember that like Worth’s crinolines, the bustles were completely new inventions.
(Photos: one of the many styles of 1883 large bustle, this with tape, wire, and cotton called a “lobster tail”, and the shape it made on real woman Cristine Nillson)