From the disciplined rhythm of fluting to the soft, body-skimming ripples of ruching, these timeless draping techniques prove that a single piece of fabric can become pure fashion sculpture. Fluting and ruching both transform flat cloth into dimensional surface design, but they create distinctly different effects—and demand different approaches at the dress form.
FLUTING
Madame Grès — fluting technique — draping directly on a live model 1945. (Image credit: Instagram)
Fluting is based on a sequence of narrow, regular folds that create a rhythmic, often vertical, diagonal or radiating pattern. Rather than the soft, compressed ripples of ruching, fluting produces crisp channels or scalloped ridges. It has an inherently linear quality and can suggest classical columns, sunbursts, shells, or the folds of historical dress. Fluting is especially effective in eveningwear, where light catches each raised fold and intensifies the garment’s surface.
TYPES OF FLUTING
Fortuny’s Dephos Gown circa 1920 ($50,000 – Image credit: eBay) — Miyake’s Pleats Please column dress 1993 and draped panel Ramie pleated dress 2026. (Image credit: IsseyMiyake.com)
The disciplined pleating associated with Mariano Fortuny, whose finely pleated Delphos gowns became icons of early twentieth-century fashion and the contemporary pleated fashion of Issey Miyake from 1993, have perfected folded-textile fluting traditions through innovation and technology.
THE FLUTING IRON
Victorian fluting iron from the 1860s. (Image credit: Historic Huguenot Street (HHS), New Paltz NY @huguenotstreet.org.)
Historically, this look had been achieved through specialized hand-pleating, heavy draping, or vintage tools like 19th-century fluting irons. In fact, as early as the 1860s, fluting irons were heated and used in the United States to create pleats on sleeves, dresses and other areas of garments.
MADAME GRÈS
Madame Grès – Fluted dress 1956
TRUE FLUTING
University of Fashion’s lesson: Creative Draping- The Art of Fluting (Image Credit: University of Fashion)
Although Fortuny and Miyake’s pleated garments are often considered fluting, true fluting involves creating bias strips and then manipulating the strips around certain areas of the body to create volume, shape and decoration. For hands-on study, University of Fashion’s Creative Draping: The Art of Fluting, taught by industry veteran Barbara Arata-Gavere, shows how to drape and hand-stitch fluting directly onto an empire bodice—a valuable technique for developing elegant, dimensional eveningwear.
RUCHING
Ruched dresses circa 1940s created by Madame Grès (Image credit: Pinterest)
Ruching is a controlled gathering technique. Fabric is drawn up, often between two stitched edges or along a central line, to create soft, compact ripples. It can be symmetrical and tailored or wildly irregular and sensuous. The result is texture with movement: a ruched bodice can visually contour the body, while ruched sleeves, skirts, and side seams create volume and drama. The word derives from the French ruche, referring to gathered, pleated, or ruffled fabric.
Among fashion’s great proponents of ruched and sculpted drapery, Madame Grès is essential. Her Grecian-inspired gowns used meticulous handwork to mold silk jersey into fluid, body-conscious compositions.
Left to right: Madame , Charles James, Azzedine Alaïa and Vivienne Westwood — ruched dresses. (Image credit: Pinterest)
Charles James circa 1930s also manipulated fabric with extraordinary architectural precision, while later designers such as Azzedine Alaïa and Vivienne Westwood (1990s) used gathering and draping to emphasize the body in more modern, provocative ways.
University of Fashion’s Creative Draping: The Art of Ruching, taught by emerging designer Kenneth McQueen, demonstrates how to prepare fabric and build ruching directly onto a dress foundation—an especially useful approach for translating a sketch into a three-dimensional garment.
