Vivienne Westwood’s ‘Mini-Crini’

“If the crinoline stands in for a mythology of restriction and encumbrance in women’s dress, in the mini-crini that mythology is juxtaposed with an equally dubious mythology of liberation associated with the mini-skirt. In it two sets of ideas about female desirability are conflated: one about covering, the other about uncovering the female body… In terms of a sartorial mythology these garments evoke a combination of tyranny and moralism that is repugnant to twentieth-century views of both women and fashion. Westwood picks out garments such as the crinoline because they are anathematized, in the same way as bondage wear.”

– Caroline Evans, Women & Fashion: A New Look, 1989.