Flounce & Ruffle

Flounce (pronounced flouns)

(1) To go with impatient or impetuous, exaggerated movements.

(2) To throw the body about spasmodically; flounder.

(3) An act or instance of flouncing; a flouncing movement.

(4) A strip of material gathered or pleated and attached at one edge, with the other edge left loose or hanging: used for trimming, as on the edge of a skirt or sleeve or on a curtain, slipcover etc.

1535–1545: Of obscure and contested origin.  Some sources suggest something akin to words from old dialectal Scandinavian forms such as the Norwegian flunsa (to hurry) or the Swedish flunsa (to plunge; to splash) but the first record of these is two centuries after the English is first documented.  Thus more preferred is a derivation of the obsolete Old French frounce (wrinkle), from the Germanic froncir (to wrinkle) and the eventual spelling in English was probably influenced by bounce.  Notions of "anger, impatience" began to adhere to the word during the eighteenth century although, as a noun of motion, use dates from the 1580s.  The use to describe “an ornamental gathered ruffle sewn to a garment by its top edge” (a kind of ruffle) was first noted in 1713, from the fourteenth century Middle English frounce (pleat, wrinkle, fold) from the Old French fronce & frounce (line, wrinkle; pucker, crease, fold) from the Frankish hrunkjan (to wrinkle), ultimately derived from the Proto-Germanic hrunk.  The plural is flounces.

Ruffle (pronounced ruhf-uhl)

(1) To destroy the smoothness or evenness of; to produce waves or undulations.

(2) In avian behaviour, for a bird to erect the feathers, usually to convey threat, defiance etc.

(3) To disturb, vex, or irritate; disturbance or vexation; annoyance; irritation; a disturbed state of mind; perturbation.

(4) Rapidly to turn the pages of a book.

(5) In the handling of playing cards, rapidly to pass cards through the fingers while shuffling.

(6) In tailoring, to draw up cloth, lace etc, into a ruffle by gathering along one edge.

(7) In military music, in the field of percussion, the low, continuous vibrating beating of a drum, quieter than a roll (also called a ruff).

(8) To behave riotously; an arrogantly display; a swagger (obsolete).

(9) In zoology, the connected series of large egg capsules, or oothecae, of several species of American marine gastropods of the genus Fulgur.

1250-1300: From Middle English ruffelen, possibly from the Old Norse hruffa & hrufla (to graze, scratch) or the Middle Low German ruffelen (to wrinkle, curl) but beyond that the origin is unknown.  It was related to the Middle Dutch ruyffelen and the German & Low German ruffeln.  The meaning "disarrange" (hair or feathers) dates from the late fifteenth century; the sense of "annoy, distract" is from the 1650s.  As one could become ruffled, so too one be unruffled, that adjectival form dating from the 1650s.  The literal meaning, in reference to feathers, leaves and such was first recorded in 1816.

The use in dressmaking to describe “an ornamental frill" is attested from 1707, derived from the verb ruffle.  Related stylistically to the ruffle is the ruff in the sense of the large, stiffly starched collar especially common in the seventeenth century, a style which dated from the 1520s; used originally in reference to sleeves, it came to be applied to collars after the 1550s, almost certainly a a shortened form of ruffle which described something physically much bigger.  As applied to playing cards, it’s actually a separate word, dating from the 1580s, from a former game of that name.  In this context, word is from the French roffle, from the early fifteenth century romfle, from the Italian ronfa, possibly a corruption of trionfo (triumph).  The game was popular between 1590-1630.  The now obsolete sense of an arrogant display or swagger is from the fifteenth century and the origin is obscure but may related to some perception of those who wore ruffs or ruffles.  The meaning as used in the percussion section of military bands is from 1715–1725 and may have been imitative of the drum sound.

The verbs (used without object) are ruffled & ruffling, ruffly is an adjective and ruffler a noun.  Synonyms (though sometimes overlapping or inaccurately applied) as applied to fabrics include strip (of fabric), frill, pleat & furbelow.  As applied to the state of mind there’s disarrange, disorder, wrinkle, rumple, disturbance, agitation, commotion, flurry & perturbation.  The plural is ruffles.

Consciously or not, designers can find themselves adding to whatever post-modernism now is.  Whether overlap or irony, when it hard to work out where the ruffle ends and the flounce begins, think of it all as frills.   

Describing various flavors of embellishment, flounce and ruffle have long been used interchangeably but in the narrow technical sense they’ve never been synonymous.  A ruffle is a piece of material gathered, usually at the top, the fullness extending the entire length of the fabric, while a flounce tends to flare, almost always smooth at the top and wider and fuller towards the bottom.  In dressmaking, as in any engineering discipline, terminological exactitude should be encouraged because one would be disappointed to receive ruffles if one really wanted a bit of flounce.  For those for who the distinction seems abstract, all such creations can be regarded as just “frilly” although, even within the industry, there are those who call flounces “circular ruffles”.

Lindsay Lohan in a ruffled dress.

As a general principle, a ruffle is created by the manipulation of a piece of fabric cut in the shape of a rectangle.  Actual geometric precision is not required because depending on the garment and the effect desired, the shape may vary but it will at least tend towards the rectangular.  The technique is to gather the fabric at the top into a smaller area; when this is sewn into a seam line, typically at the waist or neck-line, the pleats created by the gather will fall naturally, the swishing movement inherent in the fullness of the fabric being the ruffle.  The outcome is determined by the fabric’s relationship of width and length and the weight and type of material used.

The first ruffles were probably nothing to do with fashion but merely a layered appendage to protective clothing, usually as a form of water-proofing.  In the decorative sense, although antecedents can be identified in ancient Egyptian art, in their modern form they appeared first in the mid-fifteenth century as attachments to the collars of chemises which, as happens in fashion, grew in shape and complexity into the large and elaborated ruffled constructions associated with Tudor England.  Since, although the flow and flourish has waxed and waned, the ruffle has never really gone away, despite the wishes of those who prefer more austere lines.

Lindsay Lohan in a flounce dress.

The construction of a flounce differs in that the pattern tends always towards the circular, the cut technically the shape of a donut although those both ambitious and skillful can render flounces used both irregular and more complex curves although one often under-appreciated factor in success is the weight and flexibility of the material chosen: the outcome is determined by depth of the curve, the width of the fabric and the weight and type of material used.  For a flounce successfully to work, it needs to “flounce” and the movement can be influenced as much by weight as cut.  It’s the inner edge of the donut which, without any gather, is sewn into the seam while the outside edge of becomes the fullness at the hem, the volume created by virtue of the longer line.  Because the inner edge is so much shorter, there’s not the same need to gather so the results tends to be soft billows of fabric rather than pleats.  The same technique can be used to create a layered effect where the material flares out not at all but instead follow the line of the garment; this is achieved by a cut where the inner edge is much closer in length to the outer so the shape is closer to a crescent. 

There being a geometric limit to the degree of flouncing that can be achieved for the cut alone, it’s possible further to exaggerate the effect with the insertion of a godet (from the Middle French godet, from the Dutch kodde (a piece of cylindrical wood), a wedge-shaped section of fabric which deepens the floating wave at the hem without adding to the bulk gathered at the point of attachment.

The flounced and ruffled neckline: Salma Hayek demonstrates the difference.  Salma Hayek’s fine choice of clutch purses always catches the eye.

Ruffles and flounces are most associated with a wrap which extends around the garment but variations of the shape of the cuts and the techniques of attachment are used whenever something voluminous needs to be attached. Flounced and ruffled necklines and sleeves use the same rectangle versus donut model as the larger interpretations.