The cufflink is the quietest boast in menswear. It says almost nothing from across a room and everything up close, a small flash of gold or enamel at the wrist that tells anyone paying attention that a man cared about the parts of himself most people never notice. I love them for exactly that reason. And I love that, unlike the shirt or the trouser, whose ancestors go back thousands of years, the cufflink is a relative newcomer, a creature of only the last few centuries with a surprisingly royal beginning.
From string to sleeve buttons
For most of human history, men simply tied their cuffs shut. From the earliest shirt-like garments, some five thousand years ago, right through to the 1600s, a length of ribbon, string, or leather did the job, and no one thought to improve on it, largely because the shirt was considered an undergarment that polite society never actually saw. Then, in the 17th century, fashion shifted, cuffs began to show, and European tailors started stitching small buttonholes at the ends of them so a pair of linked ornamental buttons could hold them together. The French, ever ahead on these matters, called them boutons de manchette, sleeve buttons, and jewellers soon began making them in silver and gold. The cufflink was born.
The king who made them fashionable
Every good accessory needs a champion, and the cufflink found two kings. Louis XIV of France is very likely to have worn early versions, but it was Charles II of England who truly popularised them, wearing his in public and, as monarchs do, setting the fashion for everyone below him. Through the 18th century, cufflinks became the currency of royalty and aristocracy, gifted to mark occasions, collected, and worn as a plain signal of wealth and standing.
The revolution that brought them to everyone
For a long time the cufflink stayed a rich man's ornament, until industry intervened. In 1876 a German immigrant named George Krementz, borrowing a technique from the manufacture of bullets, worked out how to make cufflinks in quantity, and suddenly the middle classes could own them too. The Victorians, never shy, covered them in exuberant designs and gemstones, and the rise of the modern button-up shirt with its starched French cuff sealed the cufflink's place in the wardrobe. By the turn of the 20th century the great jewellers, Cartier, Tiffany, Fabergé, Van Cleef & Arpels, were making cufflinks studded with diamonds and sapphires, and the humble sleeve button had become a small work of art.
The quietest boast in menswear. It says almost nothing across a room, and everything up close.
How to actually wear them
Cufflinks belong with a French cuff, the double-layered cuff with no buttons that folds back on itself, or with a convertible cuff that can take either a button or a link. The mechanism is simple once you have done it once: line up the four holes of the folded cuff, turn the toggle on the back so it sits flat against the post, push it through, and turn the toggle back to lock. The decorative face should end up on the outside of the wrist, facing the world. Here is a clear demonstration if you would like to see it done.
Putting on cufflinks with a French cuff, demonstrated step by step.
Who makes the best cufflinks in the world
Ask a serious collector and a few names come up again and again. Let me give you the ones worth knowing.
Deakin & Francis is the answer most experts give first. Founded in Birmingham in 1786 and still run by the same family seven generations later, it is very possibly the oldest family jeweller in England, and it makes what many consider simply the finest cufflinks in the world. Everything is hand-crafted in its workshop in Birmingham's historic Jewellery Quarter, built to last several lifetimes, and shot through with wit, from moving mechanical designs to the famous enamelled “Road to Ruin” links depicting the four vices. If you buy one great pair, buy theirs.
Codis Maya, founded by the designer Roshini Aluwihare in 1987, is the other great British name, and the master of true vitreous enamel, real melted glass rather than the plastic resin most brands pass off as enamel. The colors genuinely glow, a single pair can take three months to complete, and the work is spread across specialist craftspeople all over Britain. For color and pattern, no one does it better.
Beyond those two specialists sit the grand jewellers, each with its own accent. Cartier and Tiffany & Co. have made exquisite, collectible links since the turn of the last century. Bulgari brings Italian architecture in lapis, mother-of-pearl, and 18k gold. Hermès offers quiet, perfect restraint with its equestrian motifs. And for antique and vintage treasures, the signed pieces from Fabergé and Van Cleef & Arpels are the holy grail of any collection.
A final word
You do not need diamonds to do this well. A single good pair, sterling silver, a bit of enamel, something that means something to you, is enough to transform a plain shirt into a considered one. That is the whole magic of the cufflink: for very little, it lets a man put a small, deliberate signature on his sleeve. Buy well, buy once, and let your cuffs do a little quiet talking.
If you would like to browse the masters, start here: Deakin & Francis.
Dress for yourself, not the room. And put something lovely at your wrist, where only the observant will find it.
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