Making a chatelaine belt
- Victorian Cycles
- Feb 4, 2020
- 1 min read
My wife made a short video of me making her a chatelaine belt! You can also catch a glimpse in here of me working on my next bike project - a late-1890s racer. You'll see more on that in the future!
Here's a link to five photos of Victorian women on bicycles:
https://www.pinterest.com/knights0570/corsets-alone/bicycles/
Here’s a link to an unusual Victorian belt-image (a lot of metal) on Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/752101206507982010/
And here’s a link to a discussion of it on the LISA site (at the end of the page):
http://www.staylace.com/gallery/gallery63/index.html
An item on a chatelaine is usually easier to work with if it’s on a fairly long chain. (Except for a watch.) Scissors, smelling salts, knives, pencils, and keys are the most obvious example. But this will be problematic when modern dress is worn, because they’ll dangle, swing, and jangle as the wearer walks, and possibly poke her when she sits. Victorian chatelaines rested on a skirt supported by hoops or petticoats and didn’t have this problem. The chatelaine vanished along with the petticoat.
Therefore, I believe that “comeback” chatelaines have to be constructed differently than Victorian ones, to reduce the swing. Here's how, maybe: Grasp the chains of all the attachments at their lowest point and press them through…
Smelling salts on a chatelaine in a vinaigrette.
I did a Google Images search for "chatelaines" and got lots of interesting results. E.g., chatelaine earrings!
The text search brought up a couple of sellers of chatelaine trinkets.
Reproduction decorative chatelaines; the last one shows a spring-friction clasp that slid down behind a belt: http://www.civilwarlady.com/jewelry.php
Steampunk chatelaine necklace: http://www.wildestdreamsdesigns.com/dreamers-chatelaine.html
Chatelaine belts and other chatelaine items for sale: http://www.alibaba.com/promotion/promotion_chatelaine-promotion-list.html
"Reticules" were also hung from chatelaine belts.
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Here is chatelaine-advocacy I sent to Lucy Williams years ago in hopes that she would become a booster:
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Two-Strap Purses
Some purses had separate straps about ten inches long. Each had a snap fastener (or button?) at the end and a mating snap about 3 inches from the end. The ends were slipped up under the belt before it was fully tightened, wrapped around it, and attached to their mating snaps.
The purse then hung about six or seven inches below the bottom edge of the belt, resting on a bouffant skirt supported by petticoats. Being thus insulated from contact with the leg during walking, and having two points of support,…