MacGregor, G. (2020). Identifying and mounting a circa 1863–1902 monogrammed chatelaine in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The Journal of Dress History, 4(3), 72–101. https://somethingunderthebed.com/CURTAIN/images/PDFs/JournalDressHistoryPDFS/JDH2020_3Autumn.pdf
Quotes
“An Introduction to Chatelaines The term, chatelaine, emerged from the French châtelaine, which described the medieval lady of the chateau who would carry the keys at her waist. Towards the eighteenth century, waist–hung appendages were called equipages——which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “the action or process of equipping” articles or apparel.2 Genevieve E. Cummins and Nerylla D. Taunton, in their seminal work Chatelaines: Utility to Glorious Extravagance, discovered that the term chatelaine—— to describe a decorative item suspended from the waist——was first used in an 1828 reference to a gold clasp “from which is suspended a chain…called la Châtelaine.”
“Many early examples of chatelaines feature a watch as a key component, making them comparable to men’s fob or pocket watches, but due to the lack of pockets in ladies’ dress, other articles began to be suspended from them.”
Things people included in their Chatelaine
- Spectacle cases
- Purses
- Perfume bottles
- Watches
- Fans
- Sewing kits
- Nurses tools
- Sketching case