Quoted from Smart Shirts | Fashion Tips:
In a way cuff links can be considered as timeless classics,since these miniature works of art actually predate the shirt. According to the National Cufflink Society, evidence of their use can be found in ancient hieroglyphics in King Tut’s tomb. But cuff links as we know them were first used during the 1700s.During that time buttons had ceased to be decorative and cuff-fastening slits were being cut into clothing. The ribbons or tape ties of the past were replaced with luxurious items, often made with gold or silver and set with gemstones. These were an extravagance reserved for the wealthy classes and were all hand-made.
It wasn’t until the mid 18th century and the invention of the steam-driven stamping machine, electro-metallurgy and the Tour a’ Guilloche machine, which could mass-produce enamel cuff links, that men’s jewelery was opened up to a wider audience. By the 1840s what we now know as the French cuff, or double-cuff shirt became popular - and unlike most fashions it’s remained so since. The middle classes adopted cuff links, but unable to afford the silver or enamel cuff links they used replicas such as fake diamonds and gold-colored alloys with foil backing instead. A hair of a lost loved one was traditionally placed under glass on a man’s cuff links as a sign of grief.
During the 1880’s in America, George Krementz patented a device based on a civil war cartridge shell-making machine that could mass produce one-piece collar buttons and cuff links. Suddenly every US business was commissioning cuff links for advertising or as gift incentives for clients. During the 1920s the enamel cuff link became the most prevalent style. In Russia, the communist revolution forced the luxury artisans of Faberge to emigrate across Europe and often to America, where they taught their enameling skills to others. Their designs often reflected the art movements of the day, but by the 1930s low-cost production of plastics led to a decline in the use of enamel. But these enamel cuff links remain highly collectible; especially the hand-made ones.
Cuff link use peaked in the mid 1960s, when Swank Inc, a popular manufacturer, was making 12 million a year. These days the figure is closer to 200,000. But cuff links are making a comeback, with gross sales having increased consistently over the last ten years, while the French cuff continues to be the most prestigious type of shirt,which have buttonholes on both sides of the cuff.To trace every significant movement in art through the design of cuff links. can be done at the Cuff link Museum in Conway, New Hampshire, which proudly displays over 70,000 pairs.The most expensive cuff links ever sold were a pair given to the soon-to-be King Edward VIII by his later wife Wallis Simpson. These featured diamonds set in platinum and sold at auction for $440,000. So as a whole,cuff links have a long history spanning many cultures and designs which makes it a timeless classic.
LSU Tigers Cufflinks
