Accessories are often small and highly decorative, but they also have a practical function. These costume add-ons work your entire body from top to toe. Some, like the buckle, haven’t changed in thousands of years. Others, like phone cases, appeared almost yesterday.

It’s hard to categorize accessories, but is the belt that fastens your jeans an accessory? What about sunglasses or jewelry? – Dress accessories are defined as items worn or worn by a person to complement clothing.

Accessories are the Cinderella of dress history, all too often forgotten while their more fashionable sisters go to the ball. Connected. Accessorizing reveals aspects of history in exciting new ways.

On the Podcast | Lucy Jane Santos answers listener questions about the history of beauty, from ancient Egyptian eye makeup to Georgian false eyebrows.

Their raw materials show us global trade and sometimes global exploitation. Some accessories bore imperial inscriptions or were used to commemorate political ideas. For example, patch boxes featuring the famous “I am a man and not a brother” anti-slavery design.

Enterprising manufacturers took advantage of the wide distribution of other goods as an opportunity for mass advertising. Accessories, though small in size, shape gender roles and expectations, and new items such as powder compacts show that these change over time.

To our modern eyes, they sometimes seem puzzling, but these once-common things have a fascinating and important story.

1

Going to the Middle Ages: How Chatelaine Evoked the Victorian Past

Beautiful and practical, the chatelaine was designed to hang from the waist of the wearer. It had a series of chains, each carrying something useful or useless.The woman who wore her chatelaine felt its weight and that it carried with her. you will hear it move.

The concept is centuries old, but in the late 1800s mass-produced became popular and featured conveniences for everyday life in the Victorian era. It could be a propulsive pencil, a note taker, a case for glasses, or a magnifying glass.

A new take on this old accessory also received the historic-sounding name “Chatelaine”. Evoking the medieval women who kept the keys to the castle, it celebrated the age-old practice of women’s skill and control of domestic affairs. This accessory faces the present by looking back at the past.

2

Dangerous Clothing: Why Edwardians Feared Hat Pins

Hatpins became very long in Edwardian times: up to 30 cm long were required to skewer a huge “picture” hat over the wearer’s equally thick hair.

The potential hazards of hat pins, especially on public transport and on busy streets, were obvious. In 1908, Phyllis his Thompson was arrested at Bootle near Liverpool. Reprimanded by her constable for being drunk and disorderly, she stabbed him in the thigh with a pin from her cap.

Fear of the dangers of hat pins is much greater in the United States than in the United Kingdom, and attempts have been made to enact legislation banning the longest of these accessories. It was seen as a ready-to-use weapon for combat, and was sometimes pulled quickly from the hat and driven into the arm, leg, or eye of the attacker.

3

Birth of Glitter: Men and Women Embrace Sparkle with Artificial Gemstones

Jewelry made from sparkling glass stones (called ‘paste’) is as popular today as it was in the 18th century. British-made shoe buckles were then designed using the ‘calibre cut’ of glass as a glittering fashion statement for men. This means that all “stones” are shaped to fit snugly into standard mounts. Precious gemstones are treated differently, with natural shapes dictating cut and mounting to reduce waste.

Alsatian jeweler Georg Friedrich Strass developed diamond paste imitations in his workshop in Paris in the 1730s. He used different chemical elements and a metallic foil base to enhance and diversify the colors and sparkles.

Following his invention, attractive accessories made of artificial gemstones became affordable to the masses.This is where bling began in the mid-18th century. And these buckles show that both women and men enjoyed them.

Four

Infatuated with Emotions: Victorian Button Mania

Button hooks were ubiquitous in the Victorian world, helping men, especially women, to get in and out of tight-fitting, heavily buttoned garments. For example, large pieces of silver and ebony were used for boots, gaiters, and spats (buttoned spatter guards worn by both adults and children). Small examples made of various metals, Scottish agate, bone and guilloche enamel were used for the form-fitting bodices and buttons of gloves.

Through these items, we can imagine the bodily sensation of being wrapped in sturdy clothing and the ritual of putting on and taking off clothes before the age of Velcro and zippers. It comes from the past, when to put on meant being able to feel the pressure of clothes on any part of your body. You would have felt comfortable in your clothes. Comfort is as much psychological as it is physical.

Five

East Meets West: 20th Century Western Designers Find Inspiration Across the Sea

Since the 18th century, the West has been fascinated by Eastern objects. In the early 20th century, European and American designers incorporated African and Asian imagery and techniques to create new trends in modernist style. West. The decorative arts, jewelry, and fashion they created were imbued with a fascination with what was considered exotic at the time.

At the time, a sense of exoticism helped sell mass-produced goods, but cultural borrowing was often only skin-deep. It has the form of Chinese characters in an ancient typeface that is incomprehensible to the reader and may have been copied or even invented just for the sake of appearance. It may have been made in a small workshop specializing in plastic artisan creations. From a world where machine and handmade were not as strictly separated as they are today.

6

Looking to the future: the compact at the heart of socially acceptable cosmetics

Compacts appeared in the early 20th century. This is part of a revolution in women’s style in which cosmetics have become not only accepted but socially necessary. Until then, wearing makeup was associated with immorality and was not widely accepted.

It took what was once illegal and made it desirable. Its portable nature has complimented women who are increasingly active outside the home, at leisure, or at work. Compacts, which are essentially small dressing tables, enabled women to apply cosmetics not only on the move but also in public, resulting in further changes in behavior.

Cordula van Wyhe is Senior Lecturer in Art History and Susan Vincent is a Research Fellow at the Center for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, both at York University.

This article was first published in the July 2022 issue. BBC History Magazine