18th Century Chatelaines & Equipage
Empty a woman’s handbag inside out and you’ve got the right idea about the chatelaine. Before purses were a woman’s primary accessory, this curious contraption that fell into the annals of fashion obscurity over time, once commonly served to carry her daily armour. Designed very much like a tool belt worn at the waist, the chatelaine held an array of both useful household appendages and fanciful items on a series of chains, reflecting a woman’s hobbies and activities of the day. As fascinating to look at as they are to learn about, let’s take a moment for a little show & tell of the bygone accessory that our foremothers were so very (literally) attached to. 

The word itself, chatelaine, derives from the French term châtelaine which translates as the mistress of a chateau, who would typically keep all the keys to the household’s many locked doors, cabinets, pantries, desks and drawers. Having the “keys to the castle”, so to speak, indicated a woman’s seniority and status, who held authority, access to the family’s valuables, power to direct the home’s servants and host its guests. With this being the highest calling to aspire to for most women before the 20th century, unmarried daughters and young debutantes would have strove to imitate this symbol of senior status in the household by fashioning their own, more decorative versions in hopes of one day becoming “The Lady Chatelaine”. 

Last updated: Dec 02, 2021

An item worn at the waist, often carrying small sewing tools, watches, and other objects, suspended from chains. The 18th century term seems to be “equipage,” as we see in this description from Town Eclogues: Thursday; the Bassette-Table, by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu:

Behold this equipage by MATHERS wrought
With fifty guineas (a great pen'orth!) bought!
See on the tooth-pick MARS and CUPID strive,
And both the struggling figures seem to liue.
Upon the bottom see the Queen's bright face;
A myrtle foliage round the thimble case;
JOVE, JOVE himself does on the scissars shine,
The metal and the workmanship divine.