BY POPULAR DEMAND | CRINOLINE CRISIS: The effect of women’s fashion on furniture & interior design in 19th century Paris with Sylvia Sagona

In the mid 19th century the Empress Eugénie took advantage of newly developed steel underskirts to expand the crinoline to extraordinary proportions.

This move, designed originally to boost the French luxury goods trade, had repercussions not only on woman’s health and her status as a decorative ornament, but on the design of furniture, the décor of rooms and the interior layout of the new mansions.

SYLVIA SAGONA is a Fellow of the School of Languages at the University of Melbourne specialising in 19^th century French art and society.