Bubble

Bubble (pronounced buhb-uhl)

(1) A spherical globule of gas (or vacuum) contained in a liquid or solid.

(2) Anything that lacks firmness, substance, or permanence; an illusion or delusion.

(3) An inflated speculation, especially if fraudulent.

(4) The act or sound of bubbling.

(5) A spherical or nearly spherical canopy or shelter; dome.

(6) To form, produce, or release bubbles; effervesce.

(7) To flow or spout with a gurgling noise; gurgle.

(8) To speak, move, issue forth, or exist in a lively, sparkling manner; exude cheer.

(9) To seethe or stir, as with excitement; to boil.

(10) To cheat; deceive; swindle (archaic).

(11) To cry (archaic Scots).

(12) A type of skirt.

(13) In infection control management, a system of physical isolation in which un-infected sub-sets population are protected by restricting their exposure to others.

1350-1400: From the Middle English noun bobel which may have been from the Middle Dutch bubbel & bobbel and/or the Low German bubbel (bubble) and Middle Low German verb bubbele, all thought to be of echoic origin.  The related forms include the Swedish bubbla (bubble), the Danish boble (bubble) and the Dutch bobble.  The use to describe markets, inflated in value by speculation widely beyond any relationship to their intrinsic value, dates from the South Sea Bubble which began circa 1711 and collapsed in 1720.  In response to the collapse, parliament passed The Bubble Act (1720), which required anyone seeking to float a joint-stock company to first secure a royal charter.  Interestingly, the act was supported by the South Sea Company before its failure.  Ever since cryptocurrencies emerged, many have been describing them as a bubble which will burst and while that has happened with particular coins (the exchange collapses are something different), the industry thus far has continued with only the occasional period of deflation.  Bubble & bubbling are nouns & verbs, bubbler is a noun, bubbled is a verb, bubbly is a noun & adjective, bubbleless & bubblelike are adjectives and bubblingly is an adverb; the noun plural is bubbles.

An artificial tulip in elisa mauve.

However although the South Sea affair was the first use of “bubble” to describe such a market condition, it wasn’t the first instance of a bubble which is usually regarded as the Dutch tulpenmanie (tulip mania) which bounced during the 1630s, contract prices for some bulbs of the recently introduced and wildly fashionable tulip reaching extraordinarily high levels, the values accelerating from 1634 until a sudden collapse in 1637.  Apparently just a thing explained by a classic supply and demand curve, the tulip bubble burst with the first big harvest which demonstrated the bulbs and flowers were really quite common.  In history, there would have been many pervious bubbles but it wasn’t until the economies and financial systems of early-modern Europe were operating that the technical conditions existed for them to manifest in the form and to the extent we now understand.  Interestingly, for something often regarded as the proto-speculative asset bubble and a landmark in economic history, twentieth-century revisionist historians have suggested it was more a behavioral phenomenon than anything with any great influence on the operation of financial markets or the real economy, the “economic golden age” of the Dutch Republic apparently continuing unaffected for almost a century after the bottom fell out of the tulip market.  The figurative uses have been created or emerged as required, the first reference to anything wanting firmness, substance, or permanence is from 1590s.  The soap-bubble dates from 1800, bubble-shell is from 1847, bubble-gum was introduced in 1935 and bubble-bath appears first to have be sold in 1937.  The slang noun variation “bubbly” was first noted in 1920, an invention of US English.  

The word "bubble" spiked shortly after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Over time, use has expanded to encompass large-scale operations like touring sporting teams and even the geographical spaces used for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics but the original meaning was more modest: small groups based on close friends, an extended family or co-workers.  These small bubbles weren't supposed to be too elastic and operated in conjunction with other limits imposed in various jurisdictions; a bubble might consist of a dozen people but a local authority might limit gatherings to ten in the one physical space so two could miss out, depending on the details in the local rules.  Bubble thus began as an an unofficial term used to describe the cluster of people outside the household with whom one felt comfortable in an age of pandemic.

Tulips

Bubbles were however a means of risk-reduction, not a form of quarantine.  The risks in a bubble still exist, most obviously because some may belong to more than one bubble, contact thus having a multiplier effect, the greater the number of interactions, the greater the odds of infection.  Staying home and limiting physical contact with others remained preferable, the next best thing to an actual quarantine.  The more rigorously administered bubbles used for events like the Olympics are essentially exercises in perimeter control, a defined "clean" area, entry into which is restricted to those tested and found uninfected.  At the scale of something like an Olympic games, it's a massive undertaking to secure the edges but, given sufficient resource allocation can be done although it's probably misleading to speak of such an operation as as a "bubble".  Done with the static-spaces of Olympic venues, they're really quarantine-zones.  Bubble more correctly describes touring sporting teams which move as isolated bubbles often through unregulated space.

The Bubble Skirt

A type of short skirt with a balloon style silhouette, the bubble dress (more accurately described as a bubble skirt because that’s the bit to which the description applies) is characterized by a voluminous skirt with the hem folded back on itself to create a “bubble” effect at the hemline.  Within the industry, it was initially called a tulip skirt, apparently because of a vague resemblance to the flower but the public preferred bubble.  It shouldn’t be confused with the modern tulip skirt and the tulip-bubble thing is just a linguistic coincidence, there’s no link with the Dutch tulipmania of the 1630s.  Stylistically, the bubble design is a borrowing from the nineteenth century bouffant gown which featured a silhouette made of a wide, full skirt resembling a hoop skirt, sometimes with a hoop or petticoat support underneath the skirt.   While bouffant gowns could be tea (mid-calf) or floor length, bubble skirts truncate the look hemlines tend to be well above the knee.  Perhaps with a little more geometric accurately, the design is known also as the “puffball” and, in an allusion to oriental imagery, the “harem” skirt.  Fashion designer Christian Lacroix (b 1951) became fond of the look and a variation included in his debut collection was dubbed le pouf but, in English, the idea of the “poof skirt” never caught on.

Lindsay Lohan in Catherine Malandrino silk pintuck dress with bubble skirt, LG Scarlet HDTV Launch Party, Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, April 2008.

It must have been a memorable silhouette in the still austere post-war world, a sheath dress made voluminous with layers of organza or tulle, the result a cocoon-like dress with which Pierre Cardin (1922-2022) and Hubert de Givenchy (1927-2018) experimented in 1954 and 1958, respectively. A year later, Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008) for Dior added the combination of a dropped waist dress and bubble skirt; post-modernism had arrived.  For dressmakers, bubble fashion presented a structural challenge and mass-production became economically feasible only because of advances in material engineering, newly available plastics able to be molded in a way that made possible the unique inner construction and iconic drape of the fabric.  For that effect to work, bubble skirts must be made with a soft, pliable fabric and the catwalk originals were constructed from silk, as are many of the high end articles available today but mass-market copies are usually rendered from cotton, polyester knits, satin or taffeta.

The bubble in the 1950s by Pierre Cardin (left), Givenchy (centre) & Dior (right).

The bubble skirt was never a staple of the industry in the sense that it would be missing from annual or seasonal ranges, sometimes for a decade or more and sales were never high, hardly surprising given it was not often a flattering look for women above a certain age, probably about seven or eight.  Deconstructing the style hints at why: a hemline which loops around and comes back up, created sometimes by including a tighter bottom half with the bulk of additional material above, it formed a shape not dissimilar to a pillow midway through losing its stuffing.  For that reason, models caution the look is best when combined with a sleek, fitted top to emphasize the slimness of the waistline, cinched if necessary with a belt some sort of delineating tie.  The bubble needs to be the feature piece too, avoiding details or accessories which might otherwise distract; if one is wearing a partially un-stuffed pillow, the point needs to be made it’s being done on purpose.

The bubble is adaptable although just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done.  The bubble skirt has however received the Paris Hilton (b 1981) imprimatur so there’s that.

TikTok and Instagram influencer Ella Cervetto (b 2000) in Oh Polly Jessamy (an off-shoulder layered bubble hem corset mini dress) in True Red (available also in Ivory), Sydney, Australia, November 2024.

On the catwalks however, again seemingly every decade or so, the bubble returns, the industry relying on the short attention span of consumers of pop culture inducing a collective amnesia which allows many resuscitations in tailoring to seem vaguely original.  Still, if ever a good case could be made for a take on a whimsical 1950s creation to re-appear, it was the staging of the first shows of the 2020-2021 post-pandemic world and the houses responded, Louis Vuitton, Erdem, Simone Rocha and JW Anderson all with billowy offerings, even seen was an improbably exuberant flourish of volume from Burberry.  What appeared on the post-Covid catwalk seemed less disciplined than the post-war originals, the precise constraints of intricately stitched tulle forsaken to permit a little more swish and flow, a romantic rather than decadent look.  The reception was generally polite but for those who hoped for a different interpretation, history suggests the bubble will be back in a dozen-odd years.