Surf Wiki
Save to docs
general/footwear-accessories

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Shoe buckle

Fashion accessory

Shoe buckle
Summary

Fashion accessory

Woman's silk damask shoes with buckles, 1740–1750, England. [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art]], M.81.71.1a-b.

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.

History

Buckled shoes began to replace tied shoes in the mid-17th century: 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." 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. Separate buckles remained fashionable until they were abandoned along with high-heeled footwear and other aristocratic fashions in the years after the French Revolution, although they were retained as part of ceremonial and court dress until well into the 20th century. In Britain in 1791 an attempt was made by buckle manufactures to stop the change in fashion by appealing to the then Prince of Wales Prince George. While the prince did start to require them for his court, this did not stop the decline of the shoe buckle. It has been suggested that the decline drove the manufacturers of steel buckles to diversify into producing a range of cut steel jewellery.

King Charles III wore shoe buckles at his coronation in 2023; the buckles were made by silversmith Clive Burr and commissioned by the London Goldsmiths Company.

Knee buckle

Knee buckles are used to fasten the knee-high boots just below the level of the knee.

Notes

References

  • Takeda, Sharon Sadako, and Kaye Durland Spilker, Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700 - 1915, Prestel USA (2010),
  • Tortora, Phyllis G. and Keith Eubank. Survey of Historic Costume. 2nd Edition, 1994. Fairchild Publications.

References

  1. Takeda and Spilker (2010), p. 183
  2. Tortora and Eubank (1995), p. 190
  3. "The Diary of Samuel Pepys".
  4. Clifford, Anne. (1971). "Cut-Steel and Berlin Iron Jewellery". Adams & Dart.
  5. Tortora and Eubank (1995), p. 272
  6. "Victoria and Albert Museum: Shoe Buckles".
  7. "The Coronation Cup of His Majesty King Charles III".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

footwear-accessories types-of-jewellery 17th-century-fashion 18th-century-fashion 19th-century-fashion maritime-culture
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Shoe buckle — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report