What Is a Pair of Cufflinks?

Cufflinks are a pair of linked fasteners used to close a shirt cuff - specifically a French or double cuff, which folds back on itself and requires a fastener rather than a sewn button.

What Is a Pair of Cufflinks?

A cufflink is built to do a specific job that an ordinary sewn button cannot: pass through two aligned buttonholes in a folded-back double cuff and hold them together from the outside. Each cufflink typically has a decorative front face, meant to be seen, connected by a chain, bar or swivel-toggle mechanism to a second, usually plainer, fitting that passes through the reverse buttonhole and secures the link in place.

How to Recognise It

Look for two connected parts joined by a chain link, rigid bar, or swivel toggle, rather than a single post as found on a shirt stud or button. The front, decorative face is usually larger and more elaborately finished than the plainer back fitting, which was designed to be hidden inside the cuff once fastened.

When Was It Worn?

Cufflinks were worn wherever a formal double cuff was worn, which through the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th century meant most formal and business dress for men, and, in a smaller decorative form, some women’s tailored fashion as well.

Origins

Fasteners used to close shirt cuffs are documented from earlier periods, but cufflinks as a widely worn, mass-produced accessory developed alongside the standardisation of men’s formal shirt design over the 19th century, particularly the spread of the stiff, starched double cuff, which could not be closed with an ordinary sewn button and created steady demand for a dedicated fastener.

How It Changed Over Time

Victorian cufflinks were typically made in gold, sometimes finished with enamel, engraving, or a small gemstone, and increasingly monogrammed as a personal accessory suited to formal dress. Edwardian cufflinks continued this general taste, often paired with matching shirt studs as part of a coordinated formal-dress set, sometimes set with pearls, mother-of-pearl or small diamonds for evening wear. The Art Deco period brought a marked shift toward bold, geometric designs - clean-edged shapes, contrasting enamel colours and calibré-cut stones - reflecting the wider design language of the Art Deco era, while cufflinks in more restrained materials such as mother-of-pearl and plain gold remained standard for everyday formal dress through the 1930s and 1940s.

Materials

Gold was the standard material for cufflinks intended as genuine jewellery, often combined with enamel or engraving. Silver, mother-of-pearl and other inexpensive but attractive materials served more everyday and lower-cost examples, while the Art Deco period introduced onyx, coloured enamels and calibré-cut coloured stones as fashionable contrasting materials.

Construction

A cufflink’s front face - the visible, decorative element - was fixed to a connecting fitting, most commonly a small chain link, a rigid bar, or a swivel-toggle mechanism that could be turned flat to pass through a buttonhole and then turned back to hold it in place. The back fitting was generally simpler and smaller than the front, since it remained hidden inside the folded cuff once fastened.

How It Was Worn

Passed through the aligned buttonholes of a folded-back double cuff on each wrist, with the decorative face showing on the outside of the cuff and the connecting mechanism and back fitting hidden within the folded fabric.

Who Wore It?

Cufflinks were worn predominantly by men as part of formal and business dress wherever a double cuff was worn, though women also wore cufflinks, particularly with tailored blouses and suits from the later 19th century onward.

Notable Variations

• Chain-link cufflink - two faces joined by a small connecting chain, an early and long-lasting basic form.
• Bar-and-swivel cufflink - a rigid bar or toggle back that turns to pass through the buttonhole, a later and more secure mechanism.
• Monogrammed cufflink - a face engraved with the wearer’s initials, especially common through the Victorian and Edwardian periods.

Terminology

“Cufflinks” is used both for the modern paired fastener described here and, more loosely in some period sources, for other cuff-closing devices, including the single or linked sleeve buttons that preceded them; the presence of a genuine two-part linked fastener is the clearest sign of a true cufflink.

Similar Jewellery

Cufflinks are closely related to, and frequently sold and worn alongside, shirt studs, which perform a comparable fastening role for the shirt front rather than the cuffs; a matched set of cufflinks and studs, sharing the same design and materials, was a common way to coordinate formal men’s dress.

Examples in Museum Collections

• Pair of gold cufflinks engraved with the monogram “S”, made by Bragg, Birmingham, 1893-94. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, M.100-1978. Each link is two oval gold plates joined by a short chain - the classic Victorian chain-link cufflink, personalised with a monogram.
• Cufflinks with Assyrian human-headed winged bulls, British, c.1880. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2023.700a, b. Gold cufflinks in the archaeological taste, acquired together with matching dress studs of the same design - a reminder that cufflinks and studs were often sold as sets.
• Chain-linked cufflinks with a geometric enamel design, 1930s. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, M.125&A-1984. Enamelled in black, yellow, blue and red, showing the Art Deco turn to geometry and bright colour.