The cone shaped hoop skirt so ubiquitous in 16th century English Fashion
was known as the farthingale, or to be more particular, the Spanish
Farthingale. There are pictures of farthingales, or skirts held out with
rigid rings of boning, dating from the 1490s. It was imported from
Spain in the early
1500s, and soon became all the rage among the upper
classes.
Together with the corset and the bumroll, the farthingale was one of the major shapers of the Elizabethan silhouette. No-one wearing fancy Elizabethan garb should be without one.
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