Cufflinks are small pieces of adornment or artwork that men can wear for two purposes. One is the purely physical purpose of closing buttonless shirt cuffs, whether they are singe cuffs or double cuffs. The other purpose is that they are worn as an item of jewellery – a form of extra decoration.
It was back in the 1500’s that men started to tie their shirt cuffs together using narrow ribbons or strings threaded through the cuff holes. However, it wasn’t until the early 1700’s that some men began to use buttons connected by a chain to fix their cuffs. These often contained a portrait of a famous person on them.
In the mid 1800’s the cuffs of shirts became stiffer as starch began to be used, and it was more difficult to push buttons through them. Nobody knows who invented the cufflink, but it solved the problem of tying the two stiff cuffs together. As the Industrial Revolution arrived, so did the usage of cufflinks increase rapidly with men of all classes wearing them. The number of different designs expanded exponentially, and today you can find cufflinks in an almost endless range of patterns and colours and materials. If you can’t find a pair of cufflinks to suit you for a particular occasion, you can even have personalised cufflinks made today.
Most men who wear cufflinks choose to wear something which matches their personality. They may also choose cufflinks which represent their country, their job, their hobbies, or perhaps celebrate the life of someone they admire, or indicate their birth month such as Taurus the bull for April to May, or Sagittarius the Archer for November to December.
Those who take pride in their country of birth can wear cufflinks such as the British Lion, the Scottish Thistle, the Irish hamrock, or if they are from Wales, Celtic symbol cufflinks such as the Welsh Dragon. There are quite a lot of do’s and don’ts when it comes to cufflinks. For example, if you work for a boss who is smartly dressed in a suit and tie, and wears stylish cufflinks, don’t go over the top and wear stylish cufflinks yourself because it may appear to him that you are trying to take over or appear "better" than he is. A small point, but one worth noting. Wear cufflinks that are more restrained in style and colour.
You should try to avoid wearing cufflinks that have colours that clash with your clothing. So, for instance, don’t wear blue cufflinks if you are wearing a green shirt, as the colours don’t go together. Of course, there is the opposite to that which is that if you REALLY want to make a statement and stand out you could wear a white or cream shirt and have bright red cufflinks. While you can wear a white shirt with, say, a dark blue or charcoal suit, it is better to wear a brown suit or even a shade of green with the lighter coloured shirts, but then bright red cufflinks would really not go with a green or red suit. You could wear red cufflinks with a blue suit and a white or blue shirt.
However, take into consideration the fact that if you are attending an event such as a wedding, what you don’t want to do is to wear cufflinks that make you stand out from the groom. This is similar to the boss situation: it is the groom’s big day, so you mustn’t overshadow it.
There are many other ways to wear cufflinks. For instance, if you support a certain political party and you are helping to canvass in an election, you would wear blue cufflinks if you are a Tory, red if Labour, and quite obviously green if the Green Party. What you would choose if a Lib Dem is a matter for you, as they do not seem to connect with any particular colour.
As briefly mentioned beforehand, you can also have personalised cufflinks made for you. There are companies that will manufacture cufflinks to your own design in silver or in gold, in stainless steel, or other metals, and they can incorporate any design that you wish, so that opens up a whole lot of opportunities.
