Vintage Shirt Studs
These vintage shirt studs and gentleman's cufflinks span from the Victorian era to the mid twentieth century.
Vintage Shirt Studs
When you search for vintage shirt studs, you meet small fastening items and double-sided cufflinks designed for formal and everyday gentleman's wear. The selection includes items spanning from the Victorian period through to the nineteen sixties.
The objects take forms such as dress studs, dress buttons, and double-sided cuff links created in styles ranging from Victorian and Edwardian to Art Deco and Art Nouveau.
How they were made
Goldsmiths worked with yellow gold, white gold, and eighteen carat gold alongside silver, brass, and platinum. Artisans mounted pearls, mother of pearl, enamel, cabochon banded agate, garnet, diamonds, and multi gem stones into the settings.
Makers utilised techniques including geometric enamel work, belt motif engraving, and glass serpent shaping as seen in pieces by R Lalique.
A pair of glass serpents slithers across the cuffs in the Art Nouveau selections.
What varies in quality
The standard of design depends upon the complexity of the period style, such as the crisp lines found in Art Deco modernist enamel pieces or the delicate details of Belle Epoque and Edwardian items.
Material selection divides the range, distinguishing simple brass or silver items from heavier fifteen carat and eighteen carat gold mountings set with diamonds, sapphires, pearls, and layered cabochon stones.
R Lalique
The Vintage Shirt Studs Glossary
- Dress studs
- Small fasteners used historically to secure the buttonholes of a gentleman's formal shirt front.
- Double-sided cufflinks
- Cufflinks featuring decorative faces connected by a short link or chain, presenting a finished appearance on both sides of the cuff.
- Cabochon
- A gemstone shaped and polished with a smooth, rounded domed surface rather than faceted edges.
- Enamel
- A vitreous substance fused to the surface of metal through firing, creating colourful decorative geometric or figurative patterns.
- Regimental cufflinks
- Items bearing specific military or institutional insignia, often worked in gold and enamel.
Vintage Shirt Studs: Frequently Asked Questions
What are vintage shirt studs used for?
These small decorative fasteners secure the front placket of a traditional formal dress shirt, replacing standard buttons.
They serve both a practical fastening purpose and an ornamental role for formal evening wear.
How do I wear double-sided cufflinks?
Double-sided links feature two decorative faces connected by a short rigid bar or flexible chain link.
You tilt one face to pass it through the buttonholes of your cuff so that both sides display the decorative material.
How can I tell the period of these pieces?
Stylistic clues such as geometric enamel lines point toward the Art Deco era, while heavier gold work and belt motifs suggest Victorian origins.
Material choices like platinum combined with yellow gold often indicate Edwardian or Belle Epoque manufacture.
What metals are common in these items?
The pieces utilise a spectrum of metals ranging from silver and brass to nine carat, fifteen carat, and eighteen carat yellow and white gold.
Platinum also appears alongside gold in finer Edwardian double-sided dress sets.