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.