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In the conclusion to the 1975 film The Stepford Wives, a series of docile, cheerful housewives push shopping carts through sterile supermarket aisles. Blank-eyed, fabulously attired, and with limited brain capacity, they’re robotic replacements for real women. Their wardrobes are all pastel and cream, featuring floppy hats, lush curls, and — most notably — elaborately ruffled blouses and dresses. The ruffles are a throwback to the ’50s — and a clear statement of delicate womanhood.
As a sartorial detail, the ruffle has a long and sometimes checkered history. It’s seen as one of the most obviously feminine fashion statements — often, as with The Stepford Wives, in a sickly sweet way. Ruffles conjure up insipid images of Gone With the Wind-era Southern belles, 1950s debutantes, and Shirley Temple. A grown woman can swan through the streets in a baby-pink coat or a vertiginous pair of heels, but until recently, ruffles could be a difficult thing to pull off without feeling like a walking confection.
This all began to shift in spring/summer ‘16, when designers from Gucci to Balenciaga popularized the flourish all over again. Whether layering frills on chiffon dresses or carefully structuring ultra-modern hemlines, sartorial demand for the ruffle seemed to reignite. The look has since leaked steadily onto the high street, resulting in some beautiful iterations, from this minimal Zara shirt to this more flamboyantly outre C/MEO Collective dress.
Judging by spring/summer ‘17 runways — whether it’s Rodarte’s fabulously girly lace or Yohji Yamamoto’s all-black, sculptural aesthetic — the ruffle isn’t going anywhere. A cursory look around Topshop or Zara reveals ruffles both ultra-girly and borderline avant-garde. They decorate hemlines and sleeves, fluttering diaphanously or standing stiff and starched. You can find them on flat boots or oversized blouses. And while there’s plenty out there that still signifies the demure and the ladylike, the most interesting pieces lean into the realm of the modishly minimal, the architectural, and the cutting-edge.
This particular flourish — flying upward from shoulders and adorning asymmetrical tops — could be thought of as the power ruffle. It’s the perfect combination of womanly and forward-thinking, and to wear one means to embrace a surprisingly fearsome legacy. The ruffle was once worn by royalty and revolutionaries of both genders, to connote strength and exceptional power.
In fact, the association between frills and girlishness is a relatively modern one. Historically, ruffles were unisex. They first came into being in 16th-century Spain, when soldiers wore several layers of clothing and often slashed their sleeve ends to reveal the fabric beneath. The natural wrinkles that appeared were then appropriated by garment makers, who sewed flexible strings into their clothes. These could be pulled tighter to give a fashionable ruffled appearance. This culminated with the Elizabethan-era ruff, a heavily starched (and wildly uncomfortable-looking) accessory. The posture-correcting ruff was worn by both men and women of high standing, from William Shakespeare to Queen Elizabeth I. At the height of their popularity, they could span up to a foot in width, sometimes requiring internal wire to keep them in place. A hot iron, not dissimilar to a fireplace poker, was even invented to expertly pleat the fabric.
Later on, both men’s and women’s fashions featured the lace sleeve or necktie as a more gentle interpretation of what had come before. In the 18th century, stiff cambric shirts, made from a material similar to linen, became popular for men. Cambric was also used to make jabots: heavily ruffled neckties worn by men to cover the openings of their dress shirts. Even as trouser lengths and skirt widths changed drastically over the years, the ruffled necktie remained in style. Portraits of any number of famous 18th-century figures reveal how much of an all-purpose accessory the jabot could be. From the royal opulence of Marie Antoinette to the radical fervor of American revolutionary Alexander Hamilton, the ruffle was everywhere. It transcended both political stance and gender.
In Victorian England, women’s dresses were decorated with bustles, tiers, and ruffles. But the best-remembered vogue of the 19th century must be the menswear craze for dandyism. Sporting immaculately tailored coats, tight pantaloons, and the elaborately tied or ruffled cravat, the dandy has a monopoly on our images of men wearing ruffles. From Lord Byron to Beau Brummell, the early 19th century saw the rise of the fashion-obsessed “decadent” man. Ridiculed as essentially effeminate and shallow, it was a short-lived trend. By the end of the 19th century, simple, unadorned collars or neckties were the norm for men.
So it was really only in the 20th century that the ruffle was pushed out of the realm of acceptable men’s attire. In the 1950s, Christian Dior’s voluminous New Look allowed women to revel in a more elaborate style after the tamped-down war years. Mid-century fashion also saw the rise of the peplum waist, another variation on the ruffle. In a decade when women’s roles were increasingly narrowed and idealized, the ruffle became more clearly gendered than ever — and synonymous with all that was feminine and sweet. Actresses like Debbie Reynolds and Judy Garland, with their more wholesome personas, suited the trend perfectly.
For the spring/summer ‘17 couture shows, we saw Karl Lagerfeld march down the Chanel runway with Lily-Rose Depp in a veritable puffball of pink chiffon. But wearing the ruffle shouldn’t have to mean looking like Little Bo Peep or a Stepford wife. Instead, it feels fitting to look to the spirit of the past while wearing the “power ruffle;” to embrace the most daring iterations of the trend. This Junya Watanabe top, for example, features the same wire-framed ruffles as were once popular in the Elizabethan days. And this structured Carmen March blouse is oddly reminiscent of the elaborately ruched skirts of centuries past. They can be worn with queenly authority rather than girly frivolity. From Elizabeth I to Stevie Nicks to Prince, there are plenty of luminaries worth channeling.
If a gathered bit of decorative fabric can carry meaning, perhaps it’s the most old-fashioned of styles which reveal it. The traditional 18th-century jabot collar, a part of ceremonial court garb, is worn regularly by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As Supreme Court justice, she chooses from her collection of ruffled collars based on her activities in court that day. Only the second woman ever appointed to the role, Ginsburg wields incredible power. How notable that she should wear ruffles while she’s doing it.