Venetian Partlet/ Falling Ruff

My new Venetian partlet/ falling ruff!

The ruff is probably the most quintessential piece of late 16th century fashion, but as far as I can tell, the big round dinner plate ruffs you see in late Elizabethan England were never common in Venice, and in the 1560s and '70s, the "ruff" seems to be more of a ruffle attached to the partlet.  Since most of my wardrobe is mid-century Venetian, I decided to make one of these.

The Venetian "falling ruff" is pretty common in portraits from the second half of the 16th century, as are partlets with no ruffle.  Some of the partlets appear to be linen, and others appear to be sheer silk, though the ruff almost always appears to be linen and/or lace.  This leads to the interesting idea that perhaps some ruffs were detachable, and not an integral part of the partlet, but for the sake of simplicity, I decided to make mine one piece.  I may make another one in the other style at a later date, though, in a fancier fabric.

Francesco Montemezzano, 1565-75
This partlet/ruff appears to be linen, trimmed
in lace.  I think I got pretty close to this look!

For this partlet/ruff, I'm using the same sheer white linen I use for 16th century chemises.  I used it for a ruffle collar on an Elizabethan chemise once, and it worked well for that, so why not, right?  It's not going to be completely plain, though!  Many of the partlets and ruffs in portraits appear to be decorated, often with pearls, lace, or blackwork or metallic embroidery.  I'm not very good at embroidery and mostly see pearls on collarless partlets, so I'm using some lace to make this elegant enough to go with the silk gown I'm planning.













The internet, Tudor Tailor, and common sense tell me a partlet pattern looks something like this:

Two front pieces and one back piece, in this case with a rectangular collar and a ruffle.  The measurements on my diagram are mine.  Shoulder seam to neck, and top of shoulder to underbust for the front, Shoulder seam to shoulder seam for the back, and collar bone to collar bone around the back for the collar.  Venetian partlets in portraits usually appear to have a v-neck effect, so I made my pieces a little narrow at the top and wider at the bottom.  There should also be a small semicircle cut out of the middle of the back top to accommodate the neck.  I'm going to do that when I have the shoulders sewn up, though, because I'd rather eyeball it than do math.  I'm also opting to make ties for the bottom out of ribbon rather than sewing them, because this makes my life a lot easier.  Some people pin their partlets on, or just make them long enough that they stay in place, but I prefer ties at the sides, so that's what I'm doing.

Very long ruffle, stitched together and
hemmed.  See my tiny (less than 1/2
inch) seam?

First, I attached the front pieces to the back with flat felled seams at the shoulders.  This is my favorite method of finishing seams because it hides all the raw edges without the bulk of French seams, but if you prefer French seams, they're also common in period.  Next, I tried on the partlet and cut out the back neckline.

Then I moved on to the ruffle.  I cut out my ruffle in several pieces to conserve fabric, resulting in a total length of about 48 inches, 4 times the length of the collar.  Since it was in pieces, the first step was to sew the pieces together, again with flat felled seams.  I then hemmed one side and both ends, and then attached the lace.

Sewing on the lace!

This is how the ruffle looks pinned to
the neck band.  Time to stitch!

Next, gathering the ruffle into the neck band.  Using very small gathering stitches, I gathered the ruffle to the length of the neck band. Then I pinned and stitched the ruffle to one of the neck band pieces.  This was kind of a pain.  Normally, I would use a whip stitch and be sure to catch either side of each pleat, but I was worried about the raw edges of this delicate linen holding up and wanted a bigger seam allowance, so instead, I stab stitched the two together, still stitching on either side of each tiny pleat.  Kind of annoying, especially since the edges of the lace kept catching the thread, but it worked.

Whip stitching the ruffle to
the neck band.

Then I sewed the neck band to the partlet, leaving seam allowances free at either end.  In retrospect, I should have pinned both neck pieces to the ruffle at the same time, but I didn't think about that until the first one was sewn on already, so the next step was attaching the second neck band piece to the ruffle.  This time, I just pinned the pieces right sides together and whip stitched over the edges, which was a mistake- I missed some of the raw edges of the ruffle, and had to go back and redo sections.  This may not have been a problem if I had been more careful the first time, but then again, I couldn't see all the layers very well.

Finally, I just had to attach the second neck band piece to the partlet.  I did this by folding the raw edges under and using tiny whip stitches, making the stitches as invisible as possible.  I put this seam on the outside of the partlet rather than the inside like I normally would because the ruffle falls over this seam, so it's actually less visible than the inside of the neck band.  This is also the side of the ruffle with visible stitching attaching the lace and holding the pieces together.  The outside of the ruffle is the underside, so this won't show when it's being worn.

Using small stitches to attach
the neck band to the partlet.

Once all the pieces were sewn together, all the "tricky" parts of this project were done!  Now all I had to do was hem the partlet and add the underarm ties and trim on the neckline.  Nothing complicated here, so this all went pretty quickly.

That's it!  All done!  One step closer to a complete mid-16th-century Venetian ensemble!

One step closer to a complete ensemble!