Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1901 — Ruffs. [ARTICLE]

Ruffs.

The extraordinary fashion of the ruff came into vogue in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The ruff was an enormous fluted collar, which, gradually rising from the front of the'shoulders to nearly the height of the head behind, encircled the wearer like a nimbus. The starching of these ruffs was considered a great art. In 15G4, one Mistress Dingham Yauder Plasse came to London, and followed the profession of a starcher of ruffs, in which she greatly excelled. She was the first who publicly taught the art, for which her charge was four or five pounds per phpil, and one pound extra for teaching how t* make the starch. The color of tfie ruffs was not always white, as we should like them were they to be fashionable now, but varied according to red, blue, or purple. Stubbs speaks of ‘these great ruffs or nekerchers, made of hollande, lawne, cambric, and such cloth, so delicate that the greatest thread in them shall not be so big as the least hair that is.” Ruffs were also made of broad folds of the finest lace, which was sometimes thickly overlaind and clocked with gold devices. Some of these works of art were worth as much as two hundred pounds. The ruff became unfashionable in consequence of its being worn on the gallows by Mrs. Turner, who was hanged for the murder of Sir Thoma® Overbury.