20 Odd Fashion Accessories That Once Solved Everyday Problems

As Edwardian hats widened and became heavier with feathers and silk during the 1890s and 1900s, they were often held in place with steel hatpins of up to 12 inches in length. Yes, 12 inches. At that point, we’re getting pretty generous with the word “pin.” Women even wielded their hatpins’ sharp points against street harassers of the day, known as “mashers.” In March 1910, Chicago required that exposed pin points be under 9 inches or fitted with safety caps after streetcar injury reports. The rule was a safety measure, not an outright ban.

In Victorian times, streets were unpaved, a mixture of mud, debris, and animal feces. Around 1846, British fashion sources first mentioned the skirt lifter. This was a spring-loaded metal clamp, often hung from a belt or a chatelaine (a tool holder attached to a woman’s waist). A woman would pull a cord to lift her long trailing hem several inches off the ground. From the 1860s through the 1880s, many patents were issued for variations of this device.

In the 18th century, women tucked their belongings into large fabric pockets that were tied around their waists, beneath very wide skirts. But when dresses in the 1790s through the 1820s became narrow and sometimes sheer, they showed off those unsightly lumps. Women thus turned to small pouches known as reticules, which featured a drawstring and were made of silk, velvet, or beads. Satirical artists dubbed them “ridicules” because they were so small and on display. A handbag insult that practically wrote itself! The design stuck, and it eventually became the modern handbag.

Many 17th- and 18th-century faces bore the scars of smallpox epidemics or those of lead-laced cosmetics called ceruse. Both men and women pasted tiny, shaped bits of silk, velvet, or taffeta over the marks with gum arabic. The patches formed stark silhouettes against powder. Later, flirtation pamphlets playfully claimed that a patch near the eye denoted passion. Most people placed theirs based on taste and scarring rather than fixed rules.

Chatelaines were hooks or plates worn at the waist with dangling chains that held scissors, thimbles, keys, scent bottles, notebooks, and other objects. They descended from the medieval practice of key-keeping, though the term and the accessory became popular only in the 1830s and 1840s. Chatelaines made from cut steel, silver, or gold conveyed the woman’s power over the household. Jeweled examples also existed for wealthy mistresses.

Before cities had modern sewer systems, their streets reeked. Between the 1770s and the 1890s, affluent individuals carried small silver or gold thumb-sized boxes with a hinged lid over a pierced grille, with a sponge soaked in aromatic vinegar and oils hidden beneath. Lifting the lid and taking a deep whiff masked the noxious smells of the streets, but it could also revive those feeling faint inside stuffy, overcrowded spaces.

Spats, a shortened form of “spatterdashes,” were pieces of felt or canvas that were tied underneath the shoe’s instep and buttoned up around the ankle. From the 1880s onwards, they kept shoes and socks clean of city grime. In the 1920s, they became fashionable and a symbol of suave style. But then came the Great Depression, and spats began to disappear.

From the 1830s to the 1900s, it was customary for women to carry a “posy,” or bouquet of flowers. However, the water seeping from the stems would ruin their expensive silk and velvet dresses. So jewelers crafted small silver or gilt-bronze cones with a finger ring attached to a chain, so that women could clamp the stems and have both hands free while dancing. Flowers without sacrificing the dress or the dancing? I can see the appeal. Queen Victoria carried a simple nosegay, not a cone, when she married in 1840. But Empress Eugenie of France presented her with a jeweled gold one in 1855.

Buttons were hard to push through the stiff leather and fabric used for Victorian boots and formal gloves from the 1850s to the 1920s. The buttonhook was a thin metal rod with a hooked tip and a handle of silver, bone, or wood. The hook caught the loop on the back of the button and pulled it through the hole. With the advent of zippers and lace-up shoes in the 1920s, the buttonhook became obsolete.

In about 1770, the London optician George Adams invented the folding lorgnette, corrective lenses attached to a handle of tortoiseshell, silver, or mother-of-pearl and opened with a spring button. It was deemed unsophisticated and unflattering for high society to wear permanent spectacles in public, but the lorgnette allowed one to quickly peruse a menu or a playbill, snap it closed, and slip it in a pocket like an article of jewelry. You could see properly without committing to looking like someone who needed to see properly. It remained in use until the 1930s.

The European court bodice, from the 1570s to the 1770s, opened in a wide V at the front. The gap was filled in by a stiffened, heavily embroidered V-shaped panel, called a stomacher, which was pinned or laced into place. This piece was often reinforced with pasteboard or wooden busks. By the time it was heavily encrusted with gold thread, pearls, and diamonds, the stomacher became the main visible display of aristocratic wealth at court.

For wealthy people between the 1700s and the 1830s, one answer to carrying small personal items was a hard-shelled case of chased silver, enamel, or gold. Called an étui, this case had a hinged lid that revealed a set of fitting slots for folding scissors, tweezers, ear scoops, toothpicks, bodkins, or large blunt needles, and even tiny ivory writing tablets, representing a complete personal grooming kit that could be hung from a chain or from the waist.

Many 17th- and 18th-century shoes were fastened with detachable metal buckles of steel, silver, or brass, occasionally inlaid with paste gems, attached to the shoe via the leather strap, known as a latchet. Quality buckles were expensive, so owners moved the same pair between multiple shoes over a lifetime, but after the French Revolution in 1789, ornate buckles fell from favor as plain laces came to signal revolutionary equality.

Because pale skin was a sign of wealth, parasols were almost required outside from the 1830s to the 1890s. But it was hard to wield a standard long-handled parasol within the small confines of an open horse-drawn carriage without the shaft poking other people. The carriage parasol featured a metal hinge halfway down the handle that let the user bend the shaft and angle the canopy while keeping the handle low in her lap.

In the Victorian era (1840s-1910s), visitors were expected to hand printed calling cards to household servants when they arrived. Calling cards were kept in small flat cases made of carved ivory, mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell, or silver to prevent them from becoming bent or smudged. A beautiful, crisp card from an exquisite case was the first indication of a caller’s refinement. First impressions had their own protective case!

Before manufacturers offered shirts in a range of arm lengths, factory-made dress shirts from the 1870s through the 1940s often came with long sleeves meant to accommodate different wearers. To get a better fit, men wore elasticized bands or spring-metal coil garters on their upper arms, which allowed them to pull up any excess fabric so that the shirt cuff would rest at their wrists. This served to keep their cuffs away from ink pens, moving machinery, and food.

Prior to padded winter jackets and lined gloves, men and women, from the 16th century up to the 1930s, warmed their hands in a fur, velvet, or down open-ended cylinder, suspended from the neck with a ribbon. Many of these muffs had a built-in slip pocket, serving as a secret place to stow cash, letters, or little bottles. The muff served as both a warmer and a wallet.

Prior to modern neckties, men from the 1820s to the 1930s favored wide silk cravats, ascots, and neckcloths. A stickpin was a long steel needle with a gemstone, pearl, or carved cameo at its tip. It was inserted through the folded silk to hold it flat against the shirtfront. The stickpin was a man’s main visible piece of jewelry.

From the Middle Ages well into the 19th century, many Europeans believed in miasma theory, the serious belief that infectious diseases were spread via contaminated, malodorous air. The wealthy would carry a perforated ball of gold, silver, or brass, sectioned off and suspended from a belt or chain around their neck or waist, filled with fragrant spices, dried herbs, ambergris, or musk. As they moved through stinking city thoroughfares, they would hold it up to their noses. To them, smelling better and staying healthy could be part of the same job.

Gentlemen typically had their mechanical pocket watches tucked into a vest pocket, secured with a gold or silver chain that looped through a waistcoat buttonhole; in the mid-1800s, this was dubbed an “Albert chain,” after Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband. A heavy fob, such as a seal, stone, or other small charm, would hang from the front of the pocket watch. This was how men checked the time until World War I, when soldiers in the trenches needed their hands free. Wristwatches quickly filled the void.

This content was created with the help of AI.