So aggravating. At that time, fashion was one of the few ways women had of expressing themselves and exerting some control over who had access to their persons and their immediate surroundings, and still men criticized them soundly for having the audacity to "take up space", basically trying to shame them into abandoning clothing that they perceived as a hindrance in some way. They wanted women in a neat little box, something they could take out and allow to exist when it was convenient and put back and forget when it wasn't, and they took great offense the second women did something to please themselves that impinged on that access or took them out of that box a little bit. The sense of entitlement to women and their bodies is appalling but not surprising and sadly has not changed much. By the way, I found your channel through your wonderful collab with Bernadette Banner, and I'm so glad I did! I'm very much looking forward to more from you : ) Thanks for all the time and effort you put into your work!!
14:54 funny (not funny haha, funny sad) how there is absolutely no winning here. *Wears normal, form fitting skirt* “oh mon dieu, those slatterns want us to look at them! temptresses” *Hides our ‘desirable flanks’ under many skirts and a four foot wide cage to keep you creeps away* “there they go again, trying to trick us and pull us towards them” 🤦♀️ misogyny is a mental illness, truly loved the video Dr Bendall Very informative 😊
If anyone's interested, there's a bloodcurdling story called "Mother of Monsters" by, I think, de Maupassant, which deals with garments designed to conceal pregnancy.
We can't win. Misogyny, the art of making sure men are always right and women always wrong, whatever you do. The soft fall of the Regency dresses criticised as too clingy, cages that draw skirts away from the body criticised as deceitful and immoral.
Seems like backbiting and maligning comments of a new foreign queen by the ladies of the French court that the king chose not to marry are to be expected, lol.
Yes there’s definitely some elements of pettiness there! Although generally it was accepted that a king would marry a foreign princess at this time to cement alliances.
@sarahabendall well of course, but that doesn't mean that the local ladies (and their parents maybe) didn't get butthurt enough to have a scathing tongue when she showed up. Or the general "we're better than you" attitude that many groups can have with foreigners might have caused wagging tongues as well. And also there is the general jealousy and backbiting that arises as a natural result of the young women of that era being used as bargaining chips. Everything I've read about the royal courts of those eras makes it seem like they were filled mostly with social climbers with little to no consciences.
This explains so much why Queen Elizabeth the 1st adopted the farthingale. She was trying to say “I’m unmarried, but I have enough power, authority and favor to bear a child whenever I want with whoever I want. So you will respect me.”
@@SpiritGirlSFShe wasn’t supposed to have any children… officially. She never married. Her father, King Henry VIII had her mother, Anne Boleyn executed on false charges. Elizabeth was thought safer - due to people who wanted her crown and the power a husband had over his wife, back then. There are rumors of her having a child with a secret lover who was a favorite of hers. It’s interesting that the favorite, Robert Dudley was married to Amy Robsart Dudley at the time, but she died in a very suspicious way. She was home alone, without any of her usual servants when she suffered a fall down stairs. She died but the way she fell and her injuries didn’t match up. It’s still unclear if she was murdered, by her husband or someone hired by him and maybe even Queen Elizabeth was involved. As a widow, Robert Dudley would have been free to marry Elizabeth. However, the scandal caused by Amy’s fall to death was so serious that there was no way for Elizabeth to be able to marry such a man as Robert Dudley. It would have turned people against her and endangered her life and her crown. There is a certain portrait of her that is thought to actually depict her pregnant, with symbolism and allegory. All paintings of the era used secret messages that people would understand, each flower stood for something different from love to grief or innocence and there were symbols in everything in the painting. Nothing in a painting like that is ever accidental or meaningless. Everything in it is there for a purpose, including the way the subject is posed and portrayed and what they are wearing. The painting is one of the only pieces of evidence of a pregnancy happening, but it’s debatable bc it can be interpreted in different ways. It can be said that she is the mother of the country and the “baby” is her country and her subjects. Many scholars suspect she did have a baby out of wedlock and it was adopted and raised by a noble family but, the official history says she never had any children. Her 45 year reign is considered one of the very best in English history and is known as “The Golden Age”.
@@SpiritGirlSF she didn't have any. She was the queen, her ladies in waiting were around her at all times. The Catholics would have jumped on her "immorality" in a nanosecond, and move to have her taken off the thrown.
@cap4life1 your comment is off the wall and not at all based in historical fact. Elizabeth I did not wear farthingale to cover up pregnancy, but because she could. She was rich and she was queen. Her power was unmatched in early modern times.
@roodbennett I think you misunderstood what they said. They didn't say she wore it to cover up a pregnancy, but as a show of her ability to do so if, when, and with whom she had chosen to. Her grandiose style was both very powerful and exaggerated, showcasing her feminity, height, wealth, and presence.
The first time I heard the name "guarda-infante", meaning keep infants, it came to my mind the idea of keeping the infants (children) inside the skirt. And then I imagine little children playng hide and seek in the courts hiding inside guarda-infantes, paniers , peticoats and cronolines. Yes, I'm very aware this would be highly scndalous and must never have happened, but noting can make me not imagine it
@sarahabendall you should NEVER apply today's standards and beliefs on people hundreds of years older than the current society. Historians and archeologists agree to slap a current IDEALOGY on to past groups DISTORTS REAL HISTORY.
Whether it's enormous skirts in voluminous luxury fabrics, flimsy empire line dresses in fine muslins, big wigs or excessive long nails, mini skirts or athle-leisure wear, stilettos, pale skin and now tanned skin, etc the subliminal message is always the same: I have wealth and do not need to work. It's always about impracticability - although this has changed over time, once it meant what was practicality for the field and kitchen, then factories, then offices. I agree with your analysis - I think also in the pre Beau Brummell Age men aldo preferred their clothes to be the focus, especially 'the sun king'!. Also the large overskirts allowed women to hide their 'pocket' and keep items on them discretely. Also the farthingale did evolve into formal court dress in France in the later century, albeit in a modified form the side pannier hoops. It's a different profile but it was equally broad and absurd in the space it occupied.
I imagine that, in hot weather, wearing a farthingale would hold the skirts away from the body and thereby be more comfortable than having all that fabric clinging around one's legs -- which is why hoop skirts were popular in Southern states in pre-Civil War USA
Besides being misogynistic, the criticisms about wearing a Farthingales are just plain ridiculous. Farthingales may push your skirts out a lot, but they are not going to hide a swelling stomach. It would be much easier to hide a pregnancy in the clothing worn in the middle ages, or in the regency. I wear corsets and Farthingales frequently, there’s no place to hide a baby in those outfits except under the skirts, as one of the other comments mentioned, but that only works after the child is born, walking.
Scandalous??? That was the mini skirt in the 60's....although many things were cultural revolutions i their own right, the Mini skirt really was the last castle wall after breaching the chastity walls and moats of societal norms....
Maria Theresa could have had Turner Syndrom. She had a small adult size, a big neck and head. She had a few children with Louis the XIV, but more misscarriages, she menstruated after the age of 18.
Would you consider Saque gowns of the 18th Century to be as scandalous? They had similar reputation as meant to hide pregnancy, while also appearing fairly tantalizingly casual. They were very similar to farthingales, too, and I guess are related. The Robe á La Francaise, or Saque, or Sack-Back, was both very fashionable but extremely controversial.
The farthingale that consisted of a disk tied around the waist made the dress look like there was a table underneath. I believe this fashion was popular primarily, if not solely, in England during Queen Elizabeth's reign. However, in all the movies and TV series depicting Queen Elizabeth, I have never once seen her dressed this way, even though it was obviously the height of fashion during this era.
There are different types of farthingale. The early one was a cone shape - "Spanish" farthingale (late 15th century in Spain, and from 1540s in England and a little earlier in France). 1580s onwards, the "French" farthingale which does have a sort of "coffee table" look. This continued into the early 17th century and was seen in France and England. And then we have this style which is almost pannier style which is seen in Spain in the mid 17th century. Odd that France get upset at with this fashion as they were the ones who had the early "wheel" or "coffee table" style of farthingale! And of course, France then have the huge panniers in the 18th century. And we have Crinoline in the 19th century.
I just read this part of your book yesterday in the train :-). Thank you so much for this very informative and well written book! It was a pleasure to read (had another few hours of train today).
Difficult to hide a pregnancy unless the skirt halloons out directly under the breasts. If the stomach is still flat...and only the hips and butt and thighs were hidden, how does that hide pregnancy?
I like a long, flared skirt or coat as much as anyone, but the idea of carrying around a frame (to the sides, or to the rear), is ridiculous. Because I'm not a display rack; my clothes exist to serve me. 😊
Excellent video! I love how you explained cultural history and implications in a digestible way. A suggestion: have you considered highlighting passages you quote so viewers can follow along?
They all look like the waistlines go way down and are expected to be drawn tight to get that shape would be pretty bad at hiding any pregnancy but the earliest ones.
This video made me order the movie at my local library. I had toread the novel in high school and found it more boring than anything else but this movie really makes me want to re-discover this classic!
While Katherine wore it when she first arrived but she quickly changed into English fashions. It’s not until the 1540s that we start to see it regularly in English wardrobes 😊
Yeah,cause you and the other people in the comment section love to blame men its annoying frankly,just stop stick to the subject.Iam a 16yr old girl and iam fed up with it ,i love historical fashion.But,i hate modern anachronisms.
@@janlafournaise6505 Don't talk down like that to me,i think while of course,like every person i know not everything especially since iam still new but, i know quite alot for my age infact that is indeed at least what many people have come to tell me,adults and my own friends my age,,unless they are lying of course. Also,for your information I'm just getting my experience now. Doesn't mean I can't have my own opinions too.
@@jahirareyes1102 You don’t have the lived experience to being “talking down” to others who others who have. You might know quite a lot for your age but you are right, you are quite new and opinions are all that you have at this stage.
The thought that anyone other than a woman should own her body infuriates me. I'm also in the US, where single-digit-aged children are able to be forced to have babies now. Anyway, I love finding new small channels that are worth subscribing to. :) #681
That painting is not Joana of Portugal, but Juana of Castile, who was born in 1479. We do not have a portrait of Joana, as far as we know, but please do not use the wrong painting - Juana is a notable person in her own right, and so is Joana. They deserve to be distinguished from one another. Also, of course, Juana is not, in this portrait wearing Spanish fashion, but Flemish, as suited her position as Archduchess at this time. Juana did, though, wear Spanish fashion during a feast in Blois as she and Philip journeyed back to Spain with Philip the Handsome, in 1501. She caused a positive sensation and impressed the French court with her dancing.
Thanks for your comment! You are to totally correct - my apologies. I got my Juana/Joana queens of Castile mixed up. I can’t edit the video, but I’ll pop a correction in the information box!
@@codename495 Nope. They wore the fashionable gowns with farthingales. There are a few paintings where its VERY obvious that the lady is pregnant (she is really showing it off) but the stomacher isn't flat and down as the growing belly is pushing it up...not the farthingale. The book The Tudor Child by Ninya Mikhaila shows in photos how full fashionable 1590s wheel farthingale can be worn whilst 6 months pregnant and when not pregnant.
Found you through Bernardette's video. Great video essay, you got yourself a new subscriber. Ps: did you record this with a fan or another machine working in the same room? There's a high pitched sound in the background that becomes bothersome a little while into the video.
So the rumor was started by a man who was upset that he couldn’t get physically close to women and then it was perpetuated by other men.
So aggravating. At that time, fashion was one of the few ways women had of expressing themselves and exerting some control over who had access to their persons and their immediate surroundings, and still men criticized them soundly for having the audacity to "take up space", basically trying to shame them into abandoning clothing that they perceived as a hindrance in some way. They wanted women in a neat little box, something they could take out and allow to exist when it was convenient and put back and forget when it wasn't, and they took great offense the second women did something to please themselves that impinged on that access or took them out of that box a little bit. The sense of entitlement to women and their bodies is appalling but not surprising and sadly has not changed much.
By the way, I found your channel through your wonderful collab with Bernadette Banner, and I'm so glad I did! I'm very much looking forward to more from you : ) Thanks for all the time and effort you put into your work!!
Especially with men today who still want to exert their entitlement over women's bodies by trying to surgically alter themselves to look like us.
The farthingale and later crinoline caused the skirts to swing from side to side like a bell when you walked which always attracts attention.
It also keeps your legs cool, particularly in hot regions!
Don't forget the bustle! Same idea.
14:54 funny (not funny haha, funny sad) how there is absolutely no winning here. *Wears normal, form fitting skirt* “oh mon dieu, those slatterns want us to look at them! temptresses”
*Hides our ‘desirable flanks’ under many skirts and a four foot wide cage to keep you creeps away* “there they go again, trying to trick us and pull us towards them”
🤦♀️
misogyny is a mental illness, truly
loved the video Dr Bendall
Very informative 😊
Most of women’s history definitely boils down to: damned if you do, damned if you don’t! Glad you enjoyed the video 😊
Keep your opinion to yourself with your terminology.
Curious. The first critical\ judgemental comment is a quote of a female member of the court.
Apparently women are dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t
@@jeraldbaxter3532 do you think women don't routinely get taught, perpetuate, and pass on misogyny?
If anyone's interested, there's a bloodcurdling story called "Mother of Monsters" by, I think, de Maupassant, which deals with garments designed to conceal pregnancy.
Ooh I’ll have to check this out!
Did anyone mention this to Elizabeth I who was painted wearing one of these 'card table farthingales? Think not.
Not if they wanted to live and keep all their limbs.
We can't win. Misogyny, the art of making sure men are always right and women always wrong, whatever you do. The soft fall of the Regency dresses criticised as too clingy, cages that draw skirts away from the body criticised as deceitful and immoral.
Really good!! This is something I was unaware of 👏🏼👏🏼
Yet this would come back in style 200 years later slighty different
Super interesting
Fascinating and infuriating!
Joana was from Portugal and her name was not pronounced as "yuana". You read Joana using the "J" sound. The phonetic symbol is /ʒ/.
Oh for god’s sakes. I guess you schooled her, Karen.
@@janlafournaise6505 if you think that someone who is providing other people knowledge is being a Karen, then u r a d*mb*ss!
Seems like backbiting and maligning comments of a new foreign queen by the ladies of the French court that the king chose not to marry are to be expected, lol.
Yes there’s definitely some elements of pettiness there! Although generally it was accepted that a king would marry a foreign princess at this time to cement alliances.
@sarahabendall well of course, but that doesn't mean that the local ladies (and their parents maybe) didn't get butthurt enough to have a scathing tongue when she showed up. Or the general "we're better than you" attitude that many groups can have with foreigners might have caused wagging tongues as well. And also there is the general jealousy and backbiting that arises as a natural result of the young women of that era being used as bargaining chips. Everything I've read about the royal courts of those eras makes it seem like they were filled mostly with social climbers with little to no consciences.
The ultimate goal of all the criticism being of course control of women's bodies. Same old story.
This explains so much why Queen Elizabeth the 1st adopted the farthingale. She was trying to say “I’m unmarried, but I have enough power, authority and favor to bear a child whenever I want with whoever I want. So you will respect me.”
How many children did she actually have?
@@SpiritGirlSFShe wasn’t supposed to have any children… officially. She never married. Her father, King Henry VIII had her mother, Anne Boleyn executed on false charges. Elizabeth was thought safer - due to people who wanted her crown and the power a husband had over his wife, back then.
There are rumors of her having a child with a secret lover who was a favorite of hers. It’s interesting that the favorite, Robert Dudley was married to Amy Robsart Dudley at the time, but she died in a very suspicious way.
She was home alone, without any of her usual servants when she suffered a fall down stairs. She died but the way she fell and her injuries didn’t match up. It’s still unclear if she was murdered, by her husband or someone hired by him and maybe even Queen Elizabeth was involved.
As a widow, Robert Dudley would have been free to marry Elizabeth. However, the scandal caused by Amy’s fall to death was so serious that there was no way for Elizabeth to be able to marry such a man as Robert Dudley. It would have turned people against her and endangered her life and her crown.
There is a certain portrait of her that is thought to actually depict her pregnant, with symbolism and allegory. All paintings of the era used secret messages that people would understand, each flower stood for something different from love to grief or innocence and there were symbols in everything in the painting. Nothing in a painting like that is ever accidental or meaningless. Everything in it is there for a purpose, including the way the subject is posed and portrayed and what they are wearing.
The painting is one of the only pieces of evidence of a pregnancy happening, but it’s debatable bc it can be interpreted in different ways. It can be said that she is the mother of the country and the “baby” is her country and her subjects. Many scholars suspect she did have a baby out of wedlock and it was adopted and raised by a noble family but, the official history says she never had any children.
Her 45 year reign is considered one of the very best in English history and is known as “The Golden Age”.
@@SpiritGirlSF she didn't have any. She was the queen, her ladies in waiting were around her at all times. The Catholics would have jumped on her "immorality" in a nanosecond, and move to have her taken off the thrown.
@cap4life1 your comment is off the wall and not at all based in historical fact. Elizabeth I did not wear farthingale to cover up pregnancy, but because she could. She was rich and she was queen. Her power was unmatched in early modern times.
@roodbennett I think you misunderstood what they said. They didn't say she wore it to cover up a pregnancy, but as a show of her ability to do so if, when, and with whom she had chosen to. Her grandiose style was both very powerful and exaggerated, showcasing her feminity, height, wealth, and presence.
The first time I heard the name "guarda-infante", meaning keep infants, it came to my mind the idea of keeping the infants (children) inside the skirt. And then I imagine little children playng hide and seek in the courts hiding inside guarda-infantes, paniers , peticoats and cronolines. Yes, I'm very aware this would be highly scndalous and must never have happened, but noting can make me not imagine it
You mean like the Mother Ginger scene in The Nutcracker?
@@cathleenc6943 or also in “A Christmas Carol”
Actually in my family, the tale is some men hide in the skirts to get out of being dragged off to fight in the civil war.
The title could also be "mysoginy in history"
100%
@sarahabendall you should NEVER apply today's standards and beliefs on people hundreds of years older than the current society. Historians and archeologists agree to slap a current IDEALOGY on to past groups DISTORTS REAL HISTORY.
Also reminds me of quinceñera dresses
It should have been called a "Hapsburg Hoop" 😂
Whether it's enormous skirts in voluminous luxury fabrics, flimsy empire line dresses in fine muslins, big wigs or excessive long nails, mini skirts or athle-leisure wear, stilettos, pale skin and now tanned skin, etc the subliminal message is always the same: I have wealth and do not need to work. It's always about impracticability - although this has changed over time, once it meant what was practicality for the field and kitchen, then factories, then offices. I agree with your analysis - I think also in the pre Beau Brummell Age men aldo preferred their clothes to be the focus, especially 'the sun king'!. Also the large overskirts allowed women to hide their 'pocket' and keep items on them discretely. Also the farthingale did evolve into formal court dress in France in the later century, albeit in a modified form the side pannier hoops. It's a different profile but it was equally broad and absurd in the space it occupied.
I imagine that, in hot weather, wearing a farthingale would hold the skirts away from the body and thereby be more comfortable than having all that fabric clinging around one's legs -- which is why hoop skirts were popular in Southern states in pre-Civil War USA
Besides being misogynistic, the criticisms about wearing a Farthingales are just plain ridiculous. Farthingales may push your skirts out a lot, but they are not going to hide a swelling stomach. It would be much easier to hide a pregnancy in the clothing worn in the middle ages, or in the regency. I wear corsets and Farthingales frequently, there’s no place to hide a baby in those outfits except under the skirts, as one of the other comments mentioned, but that only works after the child is born, walking.
Scandalous??? That was the mini skirt in the 60's....although many things were cultural revolutions i their own right, the Mini skirt really was the last castle wall after breaching the chastity walls and moats of societal norms....
Maria Theresa could have had Turner Syndrom. She had a small adult size, a big neck and head. She had a few children with Louis the XIV, but more misscarriages, she menstruated after the age of 18.
Turner syndrome sufferers are usually sterile because they cannot produce viable ova.
Would you consider Saque gowns of the 18th Century to be as scandalous? They had similar reputation as meant to hide pregnancy, while also appearing fairly tantalizingly casual. They were very similar to farthingales, too, and I guess are related. The Robe á La Francaise, or Saque, or Sack-Back, was both very fashionable but extremely controversial.
The farthingale that consisted of a disk tied around the waist made the dress look like there was a table underneath. I believe this fashion was popular primarily, if not solely, in England during Queen Elizabeth's reign. However, in all the movies and TV series depicting Queen Elizabeth, I have never once seen her dressed this way, even though it was obviously the height of fashion during this era.
There are different types of farthingale. The early one was a cone shape - "Spanish" farthingale (late 15th century in Spain, and from 1540s in England and a little earlier in France). 1580s onwards, the "French" farthingale which does have a sort of "coffee table" look. This continued into the early 17th century and was seen in France and England.
And then we have this style which is almost pannier style which is seen in Spain in the mid 17th century.
Odd that France get upset at with this fashion as they were the ones who had the early "wheel" or "coffee table" style of farthingale!
And of course, France then have the huge panniers in the 18th century.
And we have Crinoline in the 19th century.
I just read this part of your book yesterday in the train :-). Thank you so much for this very informative and well written book! It was a pleasure to read (had another few hours of train today).
Oh that’s wonderful! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! 😊
This is the first video of yours I have seen, and color me impressed! The amount and detail of your research is impressive. Subscribed!
Thanks so much! Happy to have you here 😊
Difficult to hide a pregnancy unless the skirt halloons out directly under the breasts.
If the stomach is still flat...and only the hips and butt and thighs were hidden, how does that hide pregnancy?
Just discovered your channel through Bernadette Banner, looking forward to learning with you.
Can be seen perfectly for exemple in the superb painting of Velazquez " Las Meninas" in the Prado Museum.
I like a long, flared skirt or coat as much as anyone, but the idea of carrying around a frame (to the sides, or to the rear), is ridiculous. Because I'm not a display rack; my clothes exist to serve me. 😊
Excellent video! I love how you explained cultural history and implications in a digestible way. A suggestion: have you considered highlighting passages you quote so viewers can follow along?
Put wheels on the guarda infanta and you have a baby walker.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. Good one.
They all look like the waistlines go way down and are expected to be drawn tight to get that shape would be pretty bad at hiding any pregnancy but the earliest ones.
This video made me order the movie at my local library. I had toread the novel in high school and found it more boring than anything else but this movie really makes me want to re-discover this classic!
SO INTERESTING!!!!
Thank you I did not realize the farthingale
had such a reputation. I new that Katherine of Aragon introduced this item to England.
While Katherine wore it when she first arrived but she quickly changed into English fashions. It’s not until the 1540s that we start to see it regularly in English wardrobes 😊
A worrying number of comments about farthingales sound exactly like modern misogynistic comments on women's clothing.
Yeah,cause you and the other people in the comment section love to blame men its annoying frankly,just stop stick to the subject.Iam a 16yr old girl and iam fed up with it ,i love historical fashion.But,i hate modern anachronisms.
@@jahirareyes1102calm down, pick me
@@jahirareyes1102
Oh, honey you have so much to learn.
@@janlafournaise6505 Don't talk down like that to me,i think while of course,like every person i know not everything especially since iam still new but, i know quite alot for my age infact that is indeed at least what many people have come to tell me,adults and my own friends my age,,unless they are lying of course. Also,for your information I'm just getting my experience now. Doesn't mean I can't have my own opinions too.
@@jahirareyes1102
You don’t have the lived experience to being “talking down” to others who others who have. You might know quite a lot for your age but you are right, you are quite new and opinions are all that you have at this stage.
Fascinating👏🙏🎉
Hey awesome content. I came across your channel through your collaboration with Bernadette banner. Glad to see more on period clothing on UA-cam.
The thought that anyone other than a woman should own her body infuriates me. I'm also in the US, where single-digit-aged children are able to be forced to have babies now.
Anyway, I love finding new small channels that are worth subscribing to. :) #681
So, i figure nothing changes in humanity lol
That painting is not Joana of Portugal, but Juana of Castile, who was born in 1479. We do not have a portrait of Joana, as far as we know, but please do not use the wrong painting - Juana is a notable person in her own right, and so is Joana. They deserve to be distinguished from one another. Also, of course, Juana is not, in this portrait wearing Spanish fashion, but Flemish, as suited her position as Archduchess at this time. Juana did, though, wear Spanish fashion during a feast in Blois as she and Philip journeyed back to Spain with Philip the Handsome, in 1501. She caused a positive sensation and impressed the French court with her dancing.
Thanks for your comment! You are to totally correct - my apologies. I got my Juana/Joana queens of Castile mixed up. I can’t edit the video, but I’ll pop a correction in the information box!
So what did a pregnant married woman wear
Lose robes and they stayed in confinement until they delivered.
@@codename495 Nope. They wore the fashionable gowns with farthingales. There are a few paintings where its VERY obvious that the lady is pregnant (she is really showing it off) but the stomacher isn't flat and down as the growing belly is pushing it up...not the farthingale.
The book The Tudor Child by Ninya Mikhaila shows in photos how full fashionable 1590s wheel farthingale can be worn whilst 6 months pregnant and when not pregnant.
Found you through Bernardette's video. Great video essay, you got yourself a new subscriber.
Ps: did you record this with a fan or another machine working in the same room? There's a high pitched sound in the background that becomes bothersome a little while into the video.
Came over from Bernadette, glad to find you