---
node: garment_ruff
type: garment
slug: ruff
title: "Ruff"
lead: "The ruff is a stiff, pleated collar of starched linen and lace that framed the neck in Tudor and Stuart Europe. Growing from a small frill to a vast cartwheel, it became the badge of Elizabethan status."
published: 2026-08-09
updated: 2026-08-09
image_file: ruff.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frans_Pourbus_(I)_-_Portrait_of_a_bearded_gentleman,_bust-length,_with_a_ruff_collar.jpg"
image_author: "Frans Pourbus the Elder"
image_license: "Public domain"
---

## Overview

A ruff is a separate band of finely pleated cloth, starched to hold its figure-of-eight folds, worn tied around the neck of both men and women. It began in the mid-1500s as a small ruffle at the shirt collar and swelled to enormous width.

## How it is worn

It is set on figure-eight pleats and tied at the throat over the collar of a doublet or gown, sometimes propped by a wire frame (a supportasse). At its largest a ruff had to be starched and pinned afresh each time and forced the head into a proud, upright carriage.

## History

The ruff followed the spread of starch across Europe after 1560 and reached its cartwheel extreme under Elizabeth I, a conspicuous show of costly linen and idle leisure. It shrank in the seventeenth century into the flat falling band collar of the Stuart era.