Possible Clues:

• Cheap drink! It makes for an expansive habit
• Hoop worn under skirts in Elizabethan times
• Historically, support for women some way off, a slight blow?
• Do without item before 'la' shows up? I had 'hoop'
• Habit of Victorians taking very cheap beer even for them!
• Dress circle
• Cheap drink once hidden under skirt?
• Cheap beer makes my bum look big in this
• Superwaif tucked into food, which exaggerated the hips
• Remarkably cheap beer used to make woman swell out