If you say 16th century, a word will automatically form in my mind “ruff”. In the early 1500s the ruff was just a frill, but by 1570s the ruff had grown in complexity and size. The most popular Elizabethan images portray a rigid cartwheel ruff with tightly closed pleats. It was only when Charles I ascended to the throne that the ruff became softer.
The obsession with the ruff came back this season in Riccardo Tisci’s couture collection for Givenchy in which he reinterpreted this motif in a modern key and used ruffs to create structured jackets and dresses, and turned ruff collars into decorations for evening dresses. 
3D textile designer Katherine Wardropper has instead taken the ruff to a different level, using it to produce pieces that can be used as interior decorations or that can actually be worn.
Her hand-crafted ruff-like brooches, necklaces, hairpieces and belts in satin polyester or silk decorated with little beads and crystals, are all shaped in a variety of styles, they all look very intricate and have a dramatically sculptural quality about them.
Some pieces look more like proper ruff collars, others, especially the flatter pieces in creamy colours and with petal-like formations, remind of the finest macramé lace. The black versions of her ruff necklaces inspire a certain elegance and stylish power, and, though they look heavy, they are actually lightweight and rather fragile. 
Wardropper also works on commission producing bespoke pieces. Since she graduated with a First Class Honours from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2004, she has worked on private commissions, and has also collaborated with designers such as English Eccentrics, producing for them a brooch in five different colours and a neckpiece in two colours, and working on an exclusive jewellery range that comprised brooches and neckpieces for the National Gallery Shop in London to compliment their 2007 exhibition “Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals”.
Wardropper’s pieces are the sort of jewellery you would wear when you need to feel like a princess, you want to make a bold statement or want to add that sense of the extraordinary in your life.
To know more about Katherine Wardropper’s work don’t miss this weekend (14th-15th June) event at Cockpit Arts. The event is part of London Jewellery Week.
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