Shoe buckles are fashion accessories worn by men and women from the mid-17th century through the 18th century to the 19th century. Shoe buckles were made of a variety of materials including brass, steel, silver or silver gilt, and buckles for formal wear were set with diamonds, quartz or imitation jewels. [1]
Buckled shoes began to replace tied shoes in the mid-17th century: [2] Samuel Pepys wrote in his Diary for 22 January 1660 "This day I began to put on buckles to my shoes, which I have bought yesterday of Mr. Wotton." [3] The fashion at first remained uncommon enough though that even in 1693 a writer to a newspaper complained of the new fashion of buckles replacing ribbons for fastening shoes and knee bands. [4] Separate buckles remained fashionable until they were abandoned along with high-heeled footwear and other aristocratic fashions in the years after the French Revolution, [5] although they were retained as part of ceremonial and court dress until well into the 20th century. [6] In Britain in 1791 an attempt was made by buckle manufactures to stop change in fashion by appealing to the then Prince of Wales Prince George. [4] While the prince did start to require them for his court this didn't stop the decline of the shoe buckle. [4] It has been suggested that the decline drove the manufacturers of steel buckles to diversify into producing a range of cut steel jewellery. [4]
Knee buckles are used to fasten the knee-high boots just below the level of the knee.
1870s fashion in European and European-influenced clothing is characterized by a gradual return to a narrow silhouette after the full-skirted fashions of the 1850s and 1860s.
1830s fashion in Western and Western-influenced fashion is characterized by an emphasis on breadth, initially at the shoulder and later in the hips, in contrast to the narrower silhouettes that had predominated between 1800-1820.
Ormolu is the gilding technique of applying finely ground, high-carat gold–mercury amalgam to an object of bronze, and for objects finished in this way. The mercury is driven off in a kiln leaving behind a gold coating. The French refer to this technique as "bronze doré"; in English, it is known as "gilt bronze". Around 1830, legislation in France had outlawed the use of mercury for health reasons, though use continued to the 1900s.
A tea gown or tea-gown is a woman's dress for informal entertaining at home. These dresses, which became popular around the mid-19th century, are characterized by unstructured lines and light fabrics. Early tea gowns were a European development influenced by Asian clothing and historical approach from the 18th century which led to the renaissance time period of long and flowing sleeves. Part of this European sense of fashion came from the Japanese kimono.
A court shoe, or pump, is a shoe with a low-cut front, or vamp, with either a shoe buckle or a black bow as ostensible fastening. Derivating from the 17th and 18th century dress shoes with shoe buckles, the vamped pump shape emerged in the late 18th century. By the turn of the 19th century, shoe buckles were increasingly replaced by black bows, which has remained the contemporary style for men's formal wear, leather or patent leather evening pumps ever since. This latter style is sometimes also called a opera pump or opera slipper.
A riding habit is women's clothing for horseback riding.
Fashion in the years 1750–1775 in European countries and the colonial Americas was characterised by greater abundance, elaboration and intricacy in clothing designs, loved by the Rococo artistic trends of the period. The French and English styles of fashion were very different from one another. French style was defined by elaborate court dress, colourful and rich in decoration, worn by such iconic fashion figures as Marie Antoinette.
During the 1820s in European and European-influenced countries, fashionable women's clothing styles transitioned away from the classically influenced "Empire"/"Regency" styles of c. 1795–1820 and re-adopted elements that had been characteristic of most of the 18th century, such as full skirts and clearly visible corseting of the natural waist.
Court uniform and dress were required to be worn by those in attendance at the royal court in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The robe à la polonaise or polonaise is a woman's garment of the later 1770s and 1780s or a similar revival style of the 1870s inspired by Polish national costume, consisting of a gown with a cutaway, draped and swagged overskirt, worn over an underskirt or petticoat. From the late 19th century, the term polonaise also described a fitted overdress which extended into long panels over the underskirt, but was not necessarily draped or swagged.
Fashion in the period 1690–1740 in European and European-influenced countries is characterized by a widening silhouette for both men and women following the tall, narrow look of the 1680s and 90s. This era is defined as late Baroque/Rococo style. The new fashion trends introduced during this era had a greater impact on society, affecting not only royalty and aristocrats, but also middle and even lower classes. Clothing during this time can be characterized by soft pastels, light, airy, and asymmetrical designs, and playful styles. Wigs remained essential for men and women of substance, and were often white; natural hair was powdered to achieve the fashionable look. The costume of the eighteenth century, if lacking in the refinement and grace of earlier times, was distinctly quaint and picturesque.
Fashion in the years following World War II is characterized by the resurgence of haute couture after the austerity of the war years. Square shoulders and short skirts were replaced by the soft femininity of Christian Dior's "New Look" silhouette, with its sweeping longer skirts, fitted waist, and rounded shoulders, which in turn gave way to an unfitted, structural look in the later 1950s.
A justacorps or justaucorps is a long, knee-length coat worn by men in the latter half of the 17th century and throughout the 18th century. The garment is of French origin, and was introduced in England as a component of a three-piece ensemble, which also included breeches and a long vest or waistcoat. This ensemble served as the prototype of the frock coat, which in turn evolved into the modern-day three-piece suit.
The sack-back gown or robe à la française was a women's fashion of the 18th century. At the beginning of the century, the sack-back gown was a very informal style of dress. At its most informal, it was unfitted both front and back and called a sacque, contouche, or robe battante. By the 1770s the sack-back gown was second only to court dress in its formality. This style of gown had fabric at the back arranged in box pleats which fell loose from the shoulder to the floor with a slight train. In front, the gown was open, showing off a decorative stomacher and petticoat. It would have been worn with a wide square hoop or panniers under the petticoat. Scalloped ruffles often trimmed elbow-length sleeves, which were worn with separate frills called engageantes.
Bizarre silks are a style of figured silk fabrics popular in Europe in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Bizarre silks are characterized by large-scale, asymmetrical patterns featuring geometrical shapes and stylized leaves and flowers, influenced by a wave of Asian textiles and decorative objects reaching the European market in these decades. Bizarre silks were used for both clothing and furnishings. As a description, the term was first used by Dr. Vilhelm Sloman in the title of a book, Bizarre Designs in Silks published in 1953 in Copenhagen.
Corded quilting is a decorative quilting technique popular from the late 17th through the early 19th centuries. In corded quilting, a fine fabric, sometimes colored silk but more often white linen or cotton, is backed with a loosely woven fabric. Floral or other motifs are outlined in parallel rows of running stitches or backstitches to form channels, and soft cotton cord is inserted through the backing fabric using a blunt needle and drawn along the quilted channels to produce a raised effect. Tiny quilting stitches in closely spaced rows fill the motifs and provide contrast to the corded outlines.
A close-bodied gown, English nightgown, or robe à l'anglaise was a women's fashion of the 18th century. Like the earlier mantua, from which it evolved, the back of the gown featured pleats from the shoulder, stitched down to mould the gown closely to the body until the fullness was released into the skirt. Through the 1770s, the back pleats became narrower and closer to the center back, and by the 1780s these pleats had mostly disappeared and the skirt and bodice were cut separately. The gown was open in front, to reveal a matching or contrasting petticoat, and featured elbow-length sleeves, which were finished with separate frills called engageantes.
Fashion in the twenty years between 1775–1795 in Western culture became simpler and less elaborate. These changes were a result of emerging modern ideals of selfhood, the declining fashionability of highly elaborate Rococo styles, and the widespread embrace of the rationalistic or "classical" ideals of Enlightenment philosophes.
Cut steel jewellery is a form of jewellery composed of steel that was popular between the 18th century and the end of the 1930s.
Daniel Christian Fueter (1720–1785), whose name was variously written as Fouaitier and Fouetter, was a Swiss-American silversmith and medalist, active in New York City from about 1754 until 1764 or 1766.
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