A farthingale is one of several structures used under Western European women's clothing in the 16th

and 17th centuries to support the skirts in the desired shape and enlarge the lower half of the body.
It originated in Spain in the fifteenth century. Farthingales served important social and cultural
functions for women in Renaissance Europe as they were used, primarily by court women, to show
their high social position and wealth.

Spanish farthingale[edit]

The Spanish verdugado, from which "farthingale" derives, was a hoop skirt originally stiffened
with esparto grass; later designs in the temperate climate zone were stiffened with osiers (willow
withies), rope, or (from about 1580) whalebone. The name verdugado comes from
the Spanish verdugo ("green wood", or the more modern meaning of "executioner").

The earliest sources indicate that Joan of Portugal started to use verdugados with hoops in Spain.
Joan had provoked much criticism as she allegedly wore dresses that displayed too
much décolletage, and her wanton behaviour was considered scandalous. When she started to use
farthingales, court fashion followed suit. As Joan had two illegitimate children by Pedro de Castilla y
Fonseca, rumors abounded that she used the farthingale to cover up a pregnancy.

The earliest images of Spanish farthingales show hoops prominently displayed on the outer surfaces
of skirts, although later they merely provided shape to the overskirt. Catherine of Aragon is said to
have brought the fashion into England on her marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, in 1501. However,
there is little evidence to show that she continued to wear this fashion as she adopted English styles
of dress. In March 1519 at a masque at Greenwich Palace female dancers in fanciful "Egyptian"
costumes wore black velvet gowns "with hoops from the waist downwards", which may have been
farthingales.[1]

Farthingales remained a fixture of conservative Spanish court fashion into the early 17th century (as
exemplified by Margaret of Austria), before evolving into the guardainfante of 17th-century Spanish
dress.