A framework worn beneath the skirt of an eighteenth-century gown to extend the hips horizontally—a garment of extreme silhouette that transformed the female body from a vertical column into a horizontal expanse.
At their most extreme, panniers extended the skirt to a width of over three feet on each side, requiring the wearer to turn sideways to pass through doorways, to sit at an angle, and to occupy the space of two people. The pannier was a garment of status: the wider the silhouette, the more fabric and trimming the gown required, and the more space the wearer claimed.
The pannier’s decline in the late eighteenth century was swift, as the French Revolution made the conspicuous consumption of space politically untenable. But the pannier established a principle that would recur in fashion: the silhouette can be manipulated not only through what is added to the body but through what is placed beneath the clothing. Every bustle, every crinoline, every hip pad is a descendant of the pannier’s original proposition that the female body can be expanded beyond its natural boundaries.
