---
title: "Bustle"
description: "A bustle is a pad or frame worn below the back waist to support and project the fullness of a skirt behind."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/bustle
published: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-14
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Bustle

*A bustle is a pad or frame worn below the back waist to support and project the fullness of a skirt behind.*

Bustles came in two main waves in the nineteenth century, in the early 1870s and again in the mid-1880s, when the shelf-like back reached its most extreme. They were made of padding, wire, steel hoops or collapsible frames.


## Sources

1. [Bustle (AAT 300210580)](http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300210580). Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus
2. [Bustle (Q535576)](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q535576). Wikidata

Canonical: https://teazle.art/glossary/bustle