Cufflinks Can Come In A Multitude Of Designs

Cufflinks have been around for a very long time. Since the 16th century in France, at least, when the billowing men’s shirt sleeves needed to be tied together with something to stop them flapping about. If you think about it, our upper arms are a lot bigger than our wrists, so the sleeves have to be large enough to go over the upper arms which, in turn, means that there is too much width at the point of the wrist.

That was overcome by narrowing the sleeve as it heads toward the wrist, but there still had to be enough opening to get the upper arm in, so they were designed with a slit in them at the wrist end. So far, so good. But that meant that you had this open wrist area and the only thing to do back in the day was to tie the two pieces together with string or something similar.

In the reign of Louis XIV somebody had the bright idea to use coloured baubles tied together with a short length of chain which became known as sleeve buttons, and these were pushed through a couple of small holes cut in either side of the shirt sleeves. By 1715 they had developed into miniature works of art using gold and silver links, together with gemstones, and this is how we arrived at cufflinks.

To be fair, this was not exactly a huge feat of engineering. It’s not like building a bridge across a river (although, thinking about it, the principle is the same) but it worked perfectly well. And furthermore, not a lot has changed since those days 300 years ago.

Instead of using chains – although they are still used in some designs of cufflinks – today, many of them use a solid post with a toggle at the back which can be turned through 90°. So now a cufflink consists of a front face which is the part on the outside of the wrist which is what everyone can see which is attached to a post with the toggle at the other end. So, you twist the toggle so that it is in line with the post, push it from the outside of the cuff through the hole, through the second hole in the inside of the cuff, and then twist the toggle through 90° so that it is locked into position. Hey, presto! Now you have something with a pretty design, a gemstone, or whatever, which everyone can see, and your cuffs are locked together and don’t flap about. Nuclear physics it ain’t, but it works.

Aaahh. But what to put on the front face of the cufflinks? Well, the answer is that you can put anything there that you wish. It can be a diamond, an emerald, sapphire, ruby, a lesser gemstone, or any sort of design at all. Not so many cufflinks use gemstones because of the sheer cost, but the range of possible designs on the front face is virtually limitless. Many have a flat circular shape with a pattern or print on them, but in practice the front face can be designed in any shape you wish.

Want the head of a bear? No problem. You are a sailor, so you’d like an anchor design? You’ve got it. A farmer, so how about a bull’s head? Or a wheatsheaf? Or a haystack? You own a Rolls Royce and would like a depiction of your vehicle on your cufflinks? No doubt Rolls Royce will be happy to oblige. Maybe they already make their own cufflinks for their customers? Who knows? Not us. We can’t afford a Roller!

But you get the general idea? You can have anything you want on the face of your cufflinks, and at Wimbledon Cufflink Company we do mean anything. As proud Brits, we produce a range of cufflinks with English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish symbols on the face, and many other designs as well.

But when we said that you can have anything you want on the face of your cufflinks, we mean that we will produce cufflinks to your own design provided your order is of at least 50 pairs. So, you can have gold cufflinks with your company logo on the face if you want. Think about it: what a great way to promote your business by giving all your most important customers their own pair of cufflinks with your logo. Not only are they buying your products or services, but they are promoting them to others at the same time!