Ruffs (original) (raw)

These larger ruffs were created, like ruffs of previous decades, by pleating fabric into a band. The number of pleats required per ruffle, and the amount of gathering required for the wider ruffs to fit the neck, expanded over the 1590s.

Some later period ruffs, especially in the Netherlands, appear to have been cartridge-pleated into deep folds and the top and bottom sewn to the top and bottom of a band. Pleating into the top edge of a band is a more period solution, however, and in most cases achieves the look of the portraits more closely.

Not all people followed fashion or wore these precise types of ruffs. Some women are shown wearing closed ruffs in the 1590s. Some men and women are shown wearing small, narrow ruffs in the 1580s rather than the fashionably wide ruffs worn at court. This progression should be taken as a general guideline, rather than a rigid one.

Queen Elizabeth
1592

A closed double ruff,
1594