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Miniatures Adventure => Age of the Big Battalions => Topic started by: olicana on January 25, 2022, 07:02:44 PM

Title: [Napoleonics] What are Walloon style cuff flaps?
Post by: olicana on January 25, 2022, 07:02:44 PM
Hi, please can someone tell me the general shape / pattern of a Walloon style cuff flap.

It's named but not described in an Osprey on Napoleonic Spanish uniforms (in reference to indigenous Spanish regiments, not Spanish Walloon regiments) of around 1811.

Is it like the simple one on the Walloon pictured bottom left.

(https://peninsularwargamingblog.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/guardiasespac391olas0004.jpg?w=698)

Thanks for looking.
Title: Re: [Napoleonics] What are Walloon style cuff flaps?
Post by: Jemima Fawr on January 25, 2022, 08:03:34 PM
Scraping the back of my memory, I don't think it's the cuff itself, but the style of having a lacy shirt-cuff sticking out.  It's mentioned in 16th-18th Century dress to mean fancy frills at the cuff or collar.  I could very well be wrong though.
Title: Re: [Napoleonics] What are Walloon style cuff flaps?
Post by: olicana on January 25, 2022, 09:05:26 PM
Could be that too, but it does refer to 'flap'.

The quote is

"2nd Guadalajara (1811) Blue coatee and pantaloons; Walloon style cuff flaps, straw coloured collar, cuffs and piping, crimson lapels; brass buttons."

The book is Osprey: Spanish Army of the Napoleonic Wars (3) 1812 - 1815. This book mentions Walloon style cuff flaps for other units too.

The plate in the book showing a Walloon has two buttoned vertical pieces of white lace like the three pieces of lace on the cuffs in the picture above (similar to the British cuff arrangement). I've always called that kind of thing 'vertical cuff lace': Am I wrong, are they actually called cuff flaps?
Title: Re: [Napoleonics] What are Walloon style cuff flaps?
Post by: Jemima Fawr on January 26, 2022, 12:20:06 AM
Yeah, that's certainly not what I was thinking of.  I think your first guess is the best one (the bottom-left figure) - just the simple vertical slit in the cuff.  I've always understood cuffs with buttons along the top edge to be 'Swedish' cuffs and those are definitely lace buttonholes, not 'flaps'.
Title: Re: [Napoleonics] What are Walloon style cuff flaps?
Post by: olicana on January 26, 2022, 10:42:34 AM
Swedish cuffs, I never knew that, thanks.

Before posting this thread I actually looked up British cuffs to see if I could find what the style was called, and got nothing. The best written description I could find on cuff lace and buttons in my books was 'four buttoned lace loops'. They obviously served the same purpose as flaps (to hold the cuff up / together) but were not such.

BTW, you are best not to google Swedish cuffs (like I did, innocently) with the kids around.  lol 
Title: Re: [Napoleonics] What are Walloon style cuff flaps?
Post by: Jemima Fawr on January 26, 2022, 11:56:21 AM

BTW, you are best not to google Swedish cuffs (like I did, innocently) with the kids around.  lol

 lol

Yeah, also known as 'round' cuffs.  They have to have buttons along the top edge to be 'Swedish'.  You've also got 'pointed' cuffs (also known as 'Polish' or 'Hungarian' if they've got loopy bits of braid) and 'Brandenburg' cuffs with the visible flap (like Prussian, French and Russian cuffs).  Just to confuse matters, 'Brandenburg' can also refer to that 'floral' style of lace buttonhole, like the collar-badge of WW2 German generals.
Title: Re: [Napoleonics] What are Walloon style cuff flaps?
Post by: olicana on January 26, 2022, 04:35:07 PM
I know about Hungarian cuffs and lace because I've got an Austrian SYW army. I didn't know that a Polish cuff was the same, unadorned.

Title: Re: [Napoleonics] What are Walloon style cuff flaps?
Post by: IronDuke596 on January 26, 2022, 06:20:03 PM
Haythornthwaite calls them 'Swedish cuffs' re plate 28 A in "Uniforms of the Peninsular War". The plate is of an officer of Life Guards, 1808 and the cuffs are identical to the Walloon plate you have posted here.
Title: Re: [Napoleonics] What are Walloon style cuff flaps?
Post by: olicana on January 27, 2022, 04:27:14 PM
Great, so that rules that out. It's not that simple slit cuff then. That's a Swedish cuff.

I've just checked to see what you mean (I have that book also). The simple cuff on the Walloon (pictured above, lower left) is a Swedish cuff, the same as worn by the 4 coys of Life Guards pictured in Haythornthwaite.

Thanks, Iron D.596