Rare, unusual and interesting antique costumes and textiles; for museums and collectors looking for that extra special piece, for new and established collectors and for those with a modest budget who want to adorn their person or home.

SOLD

Thomson crinoline frame
1860

Great shape.



W S Thomson & Co of Cheapside, London was the leading manufacturing of crinoline hoops producing 4,000 a day in the 1860s.The firm's hoops were considered superior.  Punch had field day caricaturing the instablity of the frames. The crinoline frame with watch-springs (wires) was light and replaced layers of heavy cotton and wool petticoats and was in fashion for twenty years. However, most women would not have worn these as they were too impractical for daily living.


Cataloguing

Thomson's Empress New Resilient B + printed in ink, below a crown, all on the narrow waistband, to tie in the front which has no verical wires, the sides and back with seven wide decoratively woven cotton vertical bands from waist to hem supporting twenty seven horizontal steels, the lower ones encased in a black and natural casing.



Circumference 7ft 2 in; 2.19 m



Height 33 in; 84 cm


Condition

The horizontal wires are all rusty but none broken, the waistband fraying, the tapes grubby and with few marks.