Garters and Fasteners

This technical fashion illustration from Gazette du Bon Ton catalogs the mechanisms of women's garters and suspender hardware with the precision of an engineering diagram. Fig. 1 shows a garter attached to a leg; subsequent figures present belt buckles, fasteners, identity plaques, expandable garter segments, ornamental clasps, and the period's innovative closure systems. The engraved style recalls the Bilderbogen tradition of German picture-sheets—instructional yet decorative—while the obsessive documentation of intimate female garment fasteners reflects the early twentieth-century fashion press's intersection of technical innovation and commodity fetishism. These designs represent the industrial refinement of women's undergarment engineering during the interwar period.