Ruffing It

I love the idea of a ruff (you know, those large, decadent collars men and women wore in Elizabethan England?).  Maybe it's the extremeness of it all, the fussy excess that they embody, the unapologetic dedication to decoration (Garments just to hold up a decorative garment, anyone? Cone shaped irons to maintain those figure eights?), or maybe it's all the power and aggression that they imply, but for whatever reason, I'm drawn to those collars.

In an attempt to distill the drama, stately power, and glorious decorative excess from the Ren-Faire associations (ack, I could live without those), I came up with my solution: a ruff for the foot.  In the same way that ruffs as collars emphasize the head by making it seemingly levitate on the shoulders, these dramatize the foot.  The idea was for them to eclipse the foot in a giant mass of decorative ruffle and have it "hover" in thin air over clear plastic (stripper) 7" heels.  With all of that pomp and circumstance, we could use some grounding, right? Ha.

The process of making them was one of experimentation.  Ultimately, I ended up making a few models before this worked out, with linen, wire, grosgrain ribbon in cream and black, and a whole lot of spray starch.  Historically accurate? Not at all, in the slightest. But then, when has that ever been my goal?!

Styled, photographed and created by (IN)DECOROUS TASTE.