---
title: "Pannier"
description: "A pannier is an eighteenth-century undergarment worn at the hips to widen a skirt to the sides while keeping it flat at the front and back."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/pannier
published: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-14
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Pannier

*A pannier is an eighteenth-century undergarment worn at the hips to widen a skirt to the sides while keeping it flat at the front and back.*

Panniers, also called side hoops, are frames of cane, whalebone or metal tied around the waist under the skirt. They push the skirt outwards at the hips, so that from the front a dress looks very wide and from the side it looks no deeper than usual. The name is French for the baskets slung on either side of a pack animal.

## When were they worn?

Side hoops spread through European fashion from the late 1710s and reached extreme widths by mid-century. In the second half of the eighteenth century they disappeared from everyday dress but survived in court dress, where formality preserved them; smaller “pocket hoops” remained in use.

## Why so wide?

The flat, broad surface displayed the textile. A court [mantua](https://teazle.art/glossary/mantua.md) worn over panniers showed off its silk, [brocade](https://teazle.art/glossary/brocade.md) or embroidery like a panel. Some panniers were hinged so that the wearer could fold them up to pass through a door.


## Sources

1. [Panniers](https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/panniers/). Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology
2. [Pannier (clothing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannier_(clothing)). Wikipedia
3. [Fashion history: paniers](https://fashion-era.com/paniers.htm). Fashion-Era

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