a stiff coarse fabric used to stiffen hats or clothing
<noun.artifact>
Crinoline \Crin"o*line\ (kr?n"?-l?n), n. [F., fr. crin hair,L. crinis.] 1. A kind of stiff cloth, used chiefly by women, for underskirts, to expand the gown worn over it; -- so called because originally made of hair.
2. A lady's skirt made of any stiff material; latterly, a hoop skirt.
Delegates looking for nostalgic flashbacks to crinoline petticoats and hoop skirts, moonlight and magnolias in modern Atlanta will just be whistling Dixie from memory and with no help at all from the convention podium.
It is concerned with the Empress Elizabeth - or rather, with a madwoman who thinks she is the Empress. At curtain-rise Mlle Guillem is found en beaute in a white crinoline by Gianni Versace, looking like a Winterhalter.
To make it wider still, she opted for a six-hoop crinoline underneath, the puffiest one available.