the.com/ruff
The collar that made necks look like they arrived on a separate plate.
means A stiff, pleated circular collar worn starched and sticking out from the neck, popular in 16th- and 17th-century European fashion.
from Simply 'ruff' as in rough or ruffled — related to the verb 'ruffle,' describing fabric gathered into crimped, wavy pleats. The look started as a modest frill peeking from a shirt collar and, over a few decades, ballooned into the architectural cartwheel-sized confections history remembers, stiffened with starch (a 16th-century import that made the whole extravagant style possible).
- peak era
- 16th-17th century European aristocracy
- starch tech
- required imported starch to hold shape
- eating hazard
- forced special long utensils to avoid soiling it
- size flex
- some spanned over a foot wide