Tie your collar and you can cuff me anytime!

I struggled before to find any information on collars and cuffs but maybe that's because i was literally just typing in collar and cuffs to google - not good - then my brain turned on and i typed 18th century etc etc and WALLAH im back in the game.

I'm only looking at cuffs and collars relevant to my era since i know the direction i want to go in so there is no point in researching all the others - just a waste of space in my sketchbook!

Ok here goes:
Cuffs
They were fake!! which i find really interesting - they would be pinned or tucked under tight elbow length sleeves - so basically they were an added extra and were called Engageantes - In the 18th century, engageantes took the form of ruffles or flounces of linen, cotton, or lace.

The photo of Marie Antoinette here shows a closeup of the engageantes she would have worn in her era.
Because im so determined not to make nothing costumey or that can even be mentioned in the name of costume - i want to re-invent these maybe change their position as none of my garments have sleeves ( i have a slight phobia of having my sleeves down lol )
but keep the same principal - that they are removable and at the wearers discretion to wear them or not.

Moving on to....
Collars
Fichu was the main collar for an 18th century female - A fichu is a large, square kerchief worn by women to fill in the low neckline of a bodice. The fichu was generally of linen fabric and was folded diagonally into a triangle and tied, pinned, or tucked into the bodice in front - again here are some examples:

Here is a painting by Vestier ( stunning i know ) - this is a more exxagerated and fulfilling Fichu collar as opposed to the image above - again avoiding a costume look - i would like to further develop my designs by incorporating this type of collar into certain designs - Possibly by the shape of the top half of the garment or by creating a Fichu Shawl etc

Either way these new findings have inspired atleast another 5 designs that are swimming around my head!!