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Home > Magazine Archives > Mar/April 2004 > Fashion: Links to History
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Fashion: Links to History
Vintage cuff links captivate collectors with romance and functionality
By Bill Strubbe
“The man had been in a coma in the hospital for months, and when he eventually regained
consciousness, his wife placed in his hand a pair of cuff links shaped like
miniature Martini glasses. Throughout their long marriage, the couple had
always made a Martini toast on every special occasion. Thus, the Martini
glass cuff links celebrated that he was out of the woods and would
recover.”
Gene Klompus, president emeritus and founder of the National Cuff Link Society
(NCLS), is recounting the yarn that won Best Story at one of the
group’s Cuff Link Conventions. “The man, the audience and
judges were all teary-eyed.” If cuff link societies and conventions, let alone
awards for maudlin stories involving a minor item of apparel,
strike you as improbable, think again. After more than
three decades of exile, beside the monogrammed hankies and stray golf tees
in the dark recesses of the sock drawer, cuff links are back and fashion
catalogs are increasingly featuring them.
The category is rife with the elements that make it
a good collectible. Cuff links have always reflected the state of the art,
economics, life and fashions of the era of their manufacture. Cuff links,
along with other auxiliary collectibles such as cuff buttons, dress sets,
tie tacks and stud boxes, have also been largely overlooked in the serious
world of collecting. For that reason they can still sometimes be had at a
bargain. However, as auction track records develop and their popularity
increases, cuff links will become more valuable and scarce.
“I’ve bought links for 50 cents or a dollar which turned out to
be very old and worth up to $1,000 to $1,200,” says Klompus.
“It’s still possible to find those kinds of deals, and
it’s one of the attractions they have as a collectible.”
“They’re really an ideal collectible.
They’re affordable, available, make good personal gifts;
they’re functional, and can be stored or displayed in a small
space,” says David Hrobowski, a cuff link collector and dealer.
“With cigar smoking, wine tasting and Martinis back in vogue, the
wrist has become a highly visible portion of one’s anatomy again. I
believe the resurgent interest in these neglected articles of men’s
apparel is about the return to class and elegance. Timepieces, tailored
suits, money clips and French cuffs add a flash of yesteryear and make cuff
links a new, yet old, way of expressing who you are.”
Such miniature works of art run the gamut from
small and discreet to oversized and outrageous, from traditional and
refined to trendy and whimsical. Cuff links often express the
wearer’s success—jewel-encrusted precious metals, dollar signs
and moneybags. Exclusive social, religious and political logos, and
indulgences such as cigars, cannabis leaves, playing cards, dice and spirit
bottles, are popular themes. Diminutive versions of carpenter tools,
typewriter keys, the New York Stock Exchange logo, stamps and coins hint at
one’s occupation or hobbies. Hand-tied fishing flies under glass,
National Football League helmets, yachts, horses and team insignias can be
just the ticket for sports fans. If gadgets are your bag, there are
doers—compasses, watches, music boxes, roulette wheels and cap
pistols.
When Hrobowski, a NCLS charter member from Los
Angeles, bought his first pair of cuff links—mirror-image scrimshaw
zebra heads carved from African ivory, with sterling toggle-back plates, signed by the artist—he had no idea what he was
starting. Twenty years later he had amassed more than 5,000 pairs ranging
in price from $20 to several thousand dollars. On his Web site
(www.cufflinkking.com), link aficionados can
view and buy a variety of cuff links.
The convention has drawn as many as 2,000
collectors, dealers and wearers from as far away as England, Germany,
Australia and Japan. They’ve taken in lectures on such subjects as
the evolution of the cuff link, its relationship to fashion, manufacturing
processes such as electroplating and enameling, and gemstone
identification.
“At the convention we have an on-site auction
of rare and unique cuff links or collections, and a vending area with about
50 dealers with lots of buying and swapping among themselves and the
public,” explains Klompus, whose company, Just Cuff Links
(847-816-0035), offers free photo appraisals. His interest in links dates
back to age 13 when an uncle came to supper wearing marcasite cuff links,
and he remarked how much he liked them. His uncle, who died two years
later, left them to young Gene. He still owns the pair to this day.
“Soon after, I began buying them at yard
sales for a quarter a pair,” says Klompus. “As I got older and
traveled for my work, I began picking them up in other cities and
countries. Friends knew I collected them and gave them to me for various
occasions. I now have over 35,000 pairs.”
As well as for Best Story, the convention offered
competitions in such categories as Best Antique (over 100 years old); Best
Do-er (with functional or moving part, such as thermometer, light, pen,
dice, etc.); and Best Precious Metal. A past winner in the grammatically
challenged category of Most Unique Pair was a pair of cuff links crafted
from oxblood coral and emeralds set in gold, designed by Howard Rifkin of
San Diego, an insurance broker with a decided aesthetic bent. He creates
only several pairs each year, describing them as “Faberge eggs reborn
as cuff links.” They cost from $2,500 to $20,000.
A new prize category was added in 1997, Best Link
“Single,” won that year by Hrobowski. Some collectors
specialize in “orphan links” and have attempted to find the
missing mates at the convention’s singles matching session.
Cuff links are a post-Renaissance fashion device.
They first gained popularity in the late 1600s, when lace trims decorating
men’s shirtfronts and sleeves were replaced by ribbons. Shirt springs
were next employed to keep cuffs fastened. Jeweled buttons—called
sleeve buttons—soon took their place. At first an affectation of the
aristocracy, they were soon adopted by the middle class and tradesmen.
In the Georgian era, of the 1700s, a type of faceted
glass, known as paste, became a popular material for jewelry and, despite
the difference in cost, was sometimes worn with diamonds. Some of the
earlier links are paste or rock crystal mounted in silver or gold. More
elaborate links were reverse painted (painted figures on the underside of
glass or quartz) and/or decorated with twisted gold wire designs under the
facet. In the London Museum, an eighteenth-
century painted rock crystal
link depicts Prince Charles Edward and Princess Louise of Stolberg. An
exhibit by Sandra Cronan Ltd. of London featured a rare pair of Stuart
crystal cuff links, most likely commemorating the marriage of Charles II to
Catherine of Braganza in 1662.
Elizabeth Hughes, coauthor of The Big Book of Buttons,
conjectures that by the late 1680s, glass sleeve buttons must have been so
common that a thief might have mistaken real diamonds for them. An amusing
historical reference penned by William Fuller of the escape of King James
II in 1688 illustrates this. When the king was halted in Kent by a group of
fishermen, “His Majesty had in his pocket a pair of very large
diamond buttons for his shirtsleeves which one of the fellows taking from
him cried out ‘see this old fop carries glass buttons about
him,’ and flung them on the ground, the kind who knew the value, took
them up again.’’
During the Industrial Revolution in the 1860s, the
development of precious metal electroplating afforded the masses a look
that was formerly beyond their means. In the 1880s, around the time
removable starched cuffs and collars were introduced, George Krementz
patented a machine adapted from a Civil War cartridge shell–making
machine that produced one-piece collar buttons and cuff links. “There
were several other American cuff link manufacturers based in Newark,
Philadelphia, New York and Rhode Island competing for the market,”
explains Hrobowski. Almost every major U.S. business company during the
first half of the twentieth century commissioned cuff links either for
advertising purposes or as gift incentives for employees or executives.
Cuff links and studs from the late 1880s through the
late 1930s, covering the Victorian, Edwardian, Art Deco, Arts and Crafts,
and Modern periods, are highly sought. During the war years, interest in
cuff links waned; however, postwar technology and travel opened the world
market again. Then, from the mid-1970s to the early ’90s, cuff links
virtually disappeared from shirtsleeves. Only in the last few years have
links become fashionable again, and for the first time, they are holding
their own as a viable collectible.
Perhaps the most famous and expensive pairs of cuff
links—they sold at auction for $440,000 in 1987—was a gift from
Wallis Simpson to Edward, the soon-to-be king of England. As recounted by
Susan Jonas and Marilyn Nissenson in their book Cuff Links, the diamonds
set in platinum, with baguette diamonds forming the initials E. and W.,
were custom ordered by Simpson in 1935. An accompanying set of buttons and
studs were inscribed with “Hold Tight.” (Later, Edward VIII
presented his true love with a ruby-and-diamond bracelet bearing the same
inscription.)
The popularity of cuff links in recent years
inspired a businessman, Claude Jeanloz, to open The Cuff Link Museum in
Conway, New Hampshire, in the late 1990s. Jeanloz, who obtained his
first pair as a confirmation gift from his godmother, began collecting cuff
links in the mid-1960s.
After amassing a large number of them, he decided
to establish the Cuff Link Museum, which boasted of 70,000 pairs on display
in 10,000 square feet—by far the largest collection in the world.
(The museum closed recently after the building where it was housed was put
up for sale. Jeanloz hopes to reopen if space can be found.) Though
it’s difficult to precisely date the pair, the museum’s oldest
links were from the late 1700s. Also on display were cuff link memorabilia
such as vintage cuff link ads, record jackets and photos featuring
performers like Arthur Fielder and The Beatles sporting links, and photos
of famous politicians, including John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev at
the United Nations, both wearing cuff links.
As with most popular fashion trends, comebacks are
inevitable. Jeanloz asserts, “If you wear to an event a pair of
treasured cuff links, whether they’re high-end or not, you will feel
special. Granted, you’ll also feel different by wearing an Armani
suit or driving a Ferrari, but the difference is that with a $50 pair of
links, you can capture a semblance of that feeling.”
Menswear designer and author Alan Flusser ventures
so far as to say in his book Style and the Man that some fashion historians mark the decline in
men’s style from the point at which ready-made buttoned cuffs
replaced cuff-linked ones. “No form of shirtsleeve closure dresses a
man’s hand better than a well-fitted French cuff punctuated by the
subtle glamour of its buttonhole-covering link.” With a hint of
snobbery, he concludes that “wearing a set that clips on one side not
only exposes its superstructure, but suggests you could only afford to pay
for the gold or gemstone on the outside.”
“This business of casual dress in the
workplace is begging for some definition,” adds Klompus.
“There’s a trend toward more structure in office dress code.
Rings and watches are the only opportunity for men to wear jewelry at work.
Ties, although personal, still fall short of cuff links in reflecting the
wearer’s personality.”
Rifkin, the cuff link designer, contends,
“Man is the forgotten animal where jewelry is concerned. Cuff links
are the only piece of jewelry a man can wear and be elegantly outrageous
and still be in good taste. I think of my unique cuff links, like all good
jewelry, as gifts to Mother Earth. Artwork, fine jewelry and fine cuff
links will long outlive their long succession of owners.”
Freelance writer Bill Strubbe owns exactly one pair
of cuff links, but no French cuff shirt with which to wear them. All cuff
links shown are from the collection of David Hrobowski. If you are interested in purchasing reprints of a recent article, please
contact the Reprint Department at reprints@mshanken.com.
(Minimum quantity: 500 copies)
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