---
title: "Farthingale"
description: "A farthingale is a structure of hoops or padded rolls worn under a skirt in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to hold it out."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/farthingale
published: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-14
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Farthingale

*A farthingale is a structure of hoops or padded rolls worn under a skirt in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to hold it out.*

The Spanish farthingale was a cone-shaped underskirt with hoops of cane or whalebone; the French or wheel farthingale, popular around 1600, held the skirt out horizontally at the hips before it fell straight down. A padded roll, the bum roll, was a simpler version. It is the ancestor of the [pannier](https://teazle.art/glossary/pannier.md) and the [crinoline](https://teazle.art/glossary/crinoline.md).


## Sources

1. [Farthingale (AAT 300210557)](http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300210557). Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus
2. [Farthingale (Q2607130)](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2607130). Wikidata

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