Farthingale

Probably the earliest depiction of the Spanish verdugado.[citation needed] Pedro García de Benabarre, Salome from the St John Retable, Catalonia, 1470–1480.
Tudor gown showing the line of the Spanish farthingale: portrait of Catherine Parr, 1545.
French farthingales, c. 1580
Silhouette of the 1590s: Elizabeth I, the Ditchley portrait
Look up farthingale in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A farthingale is one of several structures used under Western European women's clothing - especially in the 16th and 17th centuries - to support the skirts in the desired shape and to enlarge the lower half of the body. The fashion originated in Spain in the fifteenth century. Farthingales served important social and cultural functions for women in Renaissance Europe as they expressed, primarily when worn by court women, high social position and wealth.