The Claws of a Dress Clip and a Fur Clip Are Different by: Anonymous
Hi Kathy
the motifs on the clip are art nouveau; mermaids and long flowing hair are very art nouveau. I would lean towards a fur clip. These clips emerged around the 1920s, and the motifs as one would expect harked back to the proceeding period which was the Art Nouveau period.
There are differences between fur clips, dress clips and the little known shoe clips. The big difference between a dress and a fur clip are the PRONGS.
Although all make use of a hinged mechanism the claws for catching the materials are different. Fur clips will have larger prongs due to necessity, as fur is a lot more difficult to catch than the dress fabric. Fur clips have two or three long sharp prongs.
Dress clips have a hinged mechanism also with a flat metal piece that have smaller, tiny claws for catching dress fabric material.
Shoe clips on the other hand usually have a similar hinged mechanism as the dress and fur clip (or a more bendable metal (and no hinge) but the metal clip part is shorter and wider usually with two sharp claws.
