Another fashion common to those in the high mode was to have the bodice below the ruff cut so low as to show all the breast bare, and this, together with the painting of the face, gave great offence to the more sober-minded.
The ruffs and collars of lace were starched in many colours—purple, goose-green, red and blue, yellow being completely out of the fashion since the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury by Mrs. Anne Turner, the friend of the Countess of Somerset; and this because Mrs. Turner elected to appear at the gallows in a yellow ruff.
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF JAMES I. (1603-1625)
Here is seen the wide fardingale, or farthingale, the elaborate under-skirt, and the long hanging sleeves of the gown. Also, the very tall upstanding ruff or collar of lace.
As for the fardingale, it was having its last fling. This absurd garment had its uses once—so they say who write scandal of a Spanish Princess, and served to conceal her state upon a certain time; but when ladies forsook the fashion, they wore a loose, almost shapeless, gown, open from the waist to the feet, and a plain, unstiffened jerkin or jacket underneath.
Such a conglomeration is needed (if you remember we are looking over a lady’s wardrobe) to make a lady of the time: such stuffs as rash, taffeta paropa, novats, shagge, filizetta, damask, mochado. Rash is silk and stuff, taffeta is thin silk, mochado is mock velvet. There, again, one may fall into an antiquarian trap; whereas mochado is a manufacture of silk to imitate velvet, mokkadoe is a woollen cloth, and so on; there is no end to it. Still, some may read and ask themselves what is a rebatoe. It is the collar-like ruff worn at this time. In this medley of things we shall see purles, falles, squares, buskes, tires, fans, palisadoes (this is a wire to hold the hair next to the first or duchess knot), puffs, ruffs, partlets, frislets, fillets, pendulets, bracelets, busk-points, shoe-ties, shoe roses, bongrace bonnets, and whalebone wheels—Eve!
All this, for what purpose? To turn out one of those extraordinary creatures with a cart-wheel round the middle of their persons.