What Is a Buckle Brooch?

A buckle brooch is a brooch shaped as an oval or rectangular frame with a decorative “tongue” or bar across it, echoing the form of a functional belt, shoe or hat buckle, whether or not the piece ever served an actual fastening function itself.

What Is a Buckle Brooch?

The defining feature of a buckle brooch is its borrowed shape: a closed or near-closed frame, usually oval or rectangular, crossed by a bar or tongue element in imitation of a real buckle’s fastening mechanism. Some buckle brooches began life as, or continued to function as, practical buckles for a belt, shoe strap or hat band; others were made purely as brooches, using the buckle outline as a familiar and easily ornamented shape rather than for any functional purpose.

How to Recognise It

Look for the characteristic closed-frame outline crossed by a straight or curved tongue, which is the clearest sign of the form even when the piece is fitted with an ordinary pin-and-catch on the reverse rather than any functional fastening. Because the buckle shape was used across such a long period, the frame’s decoration - the cut of any set stones, the style of engraving, the metal used - is usually a better guide to date than the basic outline itself.

When Was It Worn?

Buckle brooches and buckle-shaped fastenings were worn across the period covered here wherever a belt, shoe, hat band or dress needed a decorative closure, with the form remaining fashionable as pure brooch jewellery well beyond its practical origins.

Origins

Functional buckles are ancient and were made in decorative form long before 1700. The buckle brooch specifically - a piece made or worn as a brooch while retaining the recognisable buckle outline - grew out of that long tradition of decorative functional buckles, particularly shoe and belt buckles, which were prominent, often expensive accessories in 18th-century dress.

How It Changed Over Time

Georgian buckles, particularly for shoes, were often substantial and richly set with paste or cut steel, reflecting their prominent place in 18th-century dress. As shoe fashions changed and functional buckles became less central to everyday dress, the buckle shape persisted as a decorative form, increasingly made and worn specifically as a brooch rather than a working fastening. Victorian jewellers continued to produce buckle-form brooches across a range of styles, from restrained gold examples to more elaborate gem-set pieces, valuing the shape’s familiar, easily balanced symmetry.

Materials

Georgian buckles favoured paste and cut steel, both prized for their brilliance in candlelight, alongside silver and gold for finer examples. Victorian buckle brooches used gold and silver, set with diamonds, coloured gemstones or paste depending on cost, continuing the same range of materials seen in brooches generally.

Construction

A functional buckle is built with a frame and a hinged tongue or pin that engages with a strap to fasten it; a buckle brooch made purely for decorative wear typically keeps the buckle’s frame-and-tongue appearance but replaces the working fastening with an ordinary hinged pin and catch on the reverse, in the same manner as any other brooch.

How It Was Worn

A functional buckle was worn as part of a belt, shoe strap or hat band, doing genuine fastening work; a buckle brooch was worn like any other brooch, pinned at the neckline, bodice or lapel, valued for its shape rather than any practical use.

Who Wore It?

Buckle brooches and buckle jewellery were worn by both men and women across this period, with functional shoe and belt buckles historically significant items of dress for men in the 18th century, and the later decorative buckle brooch worn predominantly by women as part of general brooch fashion.

Notable Variations

• Shoe buckle brooch - a piece derived from, or styled after, the substantial paste or cut-steel shoe buckles fashionable in the 18th century.
• Belt buckle brooch - a rectangular or oval form echoing a dress or belt buckle, worn as a brooch at the waist or elsewhere.

Terminology

“Buckle brooch” is used for both repurposed antique buckles converted to brooch use and pieces made from the outset purely as decorative brooches in buckle form; where the two can be distinguished, it usually comes down to the fastening mechanism on the reverse rather than the front of the piece.

Similar Jewellery

Buckle brooches are sometimes confused with other frame-shaped brooches, such as circle or oval brooches without a tongue element, or with functional belt and shoe buckles retained as dress accessories rather than converted to brooch use; checking for both the tongue motif and the reverse fastening helps tell them apart.

Examples in Museum Collections

Museums rarely use the term “buckle brooch”, so examples are usually catalogued simply as brooches, or as the working buckles the form imitates.

• Brooch, c.1870. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, M.132-2011. An oval frame of diamonds set in silver backed with gold, with a central vertical bar and diamond-set prongs passing through eyelets - the frame and tongue of a buckle, made to be worn with a gold pin at the back.
• Shoe buckle, English, c.1760s. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 903-1900. Pastes set in silver, with steel prongs. The museum notes that shoe buckles were worn by both men and women for most of the 18th century and were going out of use by 1790 - the functional Georgian buckle that later brooches echo.
• Cut-steel buckle, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, c.1790. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, WE.7994-2014. An oval cut-steel buckle framing a blue-and-white jasper medallion, typical of the late Georgian taste for faceted steel.