NECKWEAR-RETAINING BROOCHES

Abstract: A neckwear-retaining brooch, for anchoring the free ends of a necktie or scarf to an underlying garment to which the brooch is pinned, comprises an elongate basal member (10) with a pivotally-attached spring-biassed pin (12) and catch (13), and semi-circular gripper wings (14 and 15) extending and spaced apart one to each side of that basal member, the garment-facing gripper surfaces (16) of the wings being disposed in substantially the same plane as the garment-remote surface (17) of the basal member so that in use the ends of the neckwear are threaded under one wing, over the basal member and back under the other wing in a serpentine fashion, thus restraining the neckwear from unthreading itself from the brooch, and anchoring it in place by the frictional interlock between the neckwear and the underlying garment at the points at which the garment-facing gripper surface(s) of the wings bear down on the neckwear material. This construction provides a firm and fixed anchorage of even flimsy neckwear to an underlying garment without any danger of damage to the neckwear.

Description: '* ECKWEAR-;ETZu3-*mtt; BROOCHES" The present invention relates to neckwear-retaining brooches, that .is to say brooches intended for anchoring the free ends of neckwear such as a man's necktie or woman's scarf to an underlying garment, possibly a shirt or blouse, but especially a dress, jacket or overcoat. FTETiD OF THE INVENTION (i) General Background Knowledge It is of course self-evident that a pin can be used to hold down the free ends of a neck-scarf or necktie. A pin simpliciter is however as such both potentially dangerous and easy to lose; and therefore it is conventional to combat these dangers by providing an elongate member extending essentially parallel to the pin and bearing a catch for the free end of the pin. This kind of construction is typified in its most basic form by the universally known "safety pin" - and in more ornate forms, serving as personal adornments, by a man's tie-pin or by a woman's brooch. In such constructions, as indeed with a pin simpliciter, the actual pin is designed to pierce both the neckwear and the garment to which it is to be secured. However even men's neckties and still more women's scarves are most often made of relatively thin and flimsy material, so that frequent insertion and removal of the pin (usually in much the same place) will soon cause damage to the material of the neckwear resulting ultimately in either a hole or even a teac therein. The same problem is of course potentially encountered with the underlying garment to which the tie pin or scarf brooch is attached, but there it is usually far less acute, since the dress, jacket or overcoat is normally made of much thicker, stouter material, so that it seldom if ever suffers any noticeable damage from even quite frequent pinning and unpinning of the tie-pin or scarf brooch. (ii) Description of the Relevant Prior Art These problems outlined above are of course well- recognized, and some attempts have been made to overcome them, at least in part. Where the underlying garment has a central opening or a buttonhole (as for instance in a shirt or a jacket) this can serve to provide an attachment point for a neckwear holder, fixed to the garment without pinning through it, and thus avoiding damage to the underlying garment. Necktie holders of this kind, which are probably typical, are described in Jarrett, Rainsford & Laughton Limited's British Patent Specification No. 712,872 and in Laughton & Sons Limited's British Patent Specification No. 990,703. The Jarrett &c. British Specification No. 712,872 discloses a necktie holder, attachable to the underlying garment by means of a grip which can be slidably engaged with the frontal opening of the wearer's shirt. The Laughton British Specification No. 990,703 also discloses a necktie holder, attachable to the underlying garment, but in this instance via a chain and anchoring bar, which is inserted through a button-hole. Both these arrangements thus avoid damage to the underlying garment, but neither of them can achieve the firm fixing of the tie-holder at a precise point on the garment which is achieved by pinning. And these arrangements equally fail to achieve any really firm anchorage of the necktie. Both of them include a loop through which the necktie passes relatively loosely, and thus indeed avoid the damage caused by pinning through it - but, though the loop does of course loosely restrain the ends of the necktie, it does not positively hold the necktie in any particular, chosen position upon the underlying garment. The fact that these known constructions of necktie holder will allow the tie to move fairly freely is actually seen as an advantage according to the Jarrett British Specification, and perhaps that may be so in some circumstances; but to achieve and retain some particular "sculptural" effect even with a necktie and certainly with a man's square or lady's scarf, it is necessary for the loose ends of such neckwear to be very firmly anchored down to the underlying garment. For a complete picture of the state of the art it is perhaps worth mentioning the lingerie clip of Sybil Knight's British Specification No. 426,670, which is in effect a sort of "twin" safety pin, the two pins being sprung from opposite ends of a common central bar. It is no doubt irrelevant that this construction is unattractive, being intended for interconnecting the shoulder-strap of an item of a lady's lingerie with her dress and therefore concealed from sight - but it is to be noted that this is an arrangement actually intended to be used in such a way that the shoulder-strap runs freely through the "loop" between one pin and the common bar, while if it were "misused" to pin down the shoulder- strap the latter would quickly suffer damage. DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION None of these known constructions is thus able to achieve the objective of the present invention, which is to provide a neckwear-retaining brooch which simultaneously can be releasably secured in any desired fixed position anywhere upon an underlying garment, and yet can there provide a quite firm anchorage for the ends of neckwear (so that it can be sculpturally modelled in a desired manner) without damaging the flimsy neckwear material - all in a manner consonant with the attractiveappearance naturally required in a piece of jewellery. According to the present invention there is provided a scarf brooch comprising an elongate basal member, a securing pin for fastening the brooch to an underlying garment, the pinbeingattached at one of its ends to the garment-facing surface of the basal member in such a manner that it can be moved pivotally against spring bias from an open to a closed position and vice versa, catch means associated with the basal member whereby the other, free end of the pin may be releasably retained in its closed position, and at least one gripper wing on each side of the elongate basal member, each such gripper wing being connected to the basal member at or adjacent one of the ends thereof and extending therefrom laterally to one side thereof and also longitudinally in a direction generally parallel thereto, so as thus to provide garment-facing gripper surfaces spaced to either side of the basal member, the garment-facing gripper surfaces of the gripper wings lying in essentially the same plane as the garment-remote surface of the basal member, so that in use neckwear threaded first under one gripper wing, then over the basal member, and finally back under the other gripper wing passes in a serpentine fashion through the brooch and will be thereby restrained from unthreading itself and also pressed by the gripper surfaces into firm frictional engagement with the underlying garment to which the brooch is pinned. The elongate basal member is desirably of substantial width, thus increasing the area of frictional contact of the n-ckwear therewith. The attachment of the pin to the garment-facing side of the basal member is essentially conventional. Thus it may be effected via a helica] spring in the manner of a safety pin; but in good-quality costume jewellery it will normally and preferably be pivotally mounted between upstanding lugs, and biassed by a separate helical spring (or any other suitable spring means) associated with the pivotal mounting towards its open position. The catch member, mounted on the garment- facing s5.de of the basal member adjacent the free end of the pin, can be of any conventional nature, preferably of the kind which incorporates a locking arrangement. The gripper wings may take various forms. It is possible to have constructions in which a generally 'L' shap>ed gripper wing is attached to each side of the basal member, and can extend from either end thereof; or in which two such 'L' shaped gripper wings (one the mirror- image of the other) extend to each side of the basal member, but from opposite ends thereof. Alternatively the necessary lateral and longitudinal extensions of the gripper wings may be achieved simultaneously by disposing an essentially linear gripper wing at an angle (say 45°) to the basal member. Other, more complex multi-linear arrangements of gripper wing are also possible. However, the currently preferred constructions, because they are functionally most effective and in our view aesthetically most attractive, are those in which each gripper wing is of arcuate shap>e, running continuously (without any gap) from a point at or adjacent one end of the basal member to a point at or adjacent the other end thereof. Such arcuate shapes can of course include -parabolas and so on, and they do not necessarily have to be symmetrical - but the simplest and probably the best shape for such a gripper wing is that of a semi-circle. The function to be served by the brooch of this invention also strongly recommends adoption of a feature quite unusual in normal costume jewellery, namely the pχ>lishing or at least semi-polishing of surfaces thereof which contact the neckwear and which therefore are invisible when the brooch is in use, so that there shall be no rough surfaces to cause damage to flimsy neckwear material. It is for this reason advisable that the garment-remote surfaces of the basal member should be at least semi-polished, and/or that the garment-facing gripper surfaces of the gripper wings should be at least semi-polished. In any event, but especially if the neckwear-contacting surfaces of the brooch are polished or semi-polished as recommended above, the fixing of the neckwear in place upon the garment is due above all to the frictional interlock between them at the points at which the gripper surfaces bear the neckwear down upon the garment. It is therefore desirable to make those gripper surfaces of the gripper wings as effective as possible, and for that purpose it is therefore advantageous if each gripper surface has not just one actual bearing surface but two or even more such bearing surfaces thereon. That can be achieved in various ways, but one which is convenient from a manufacturing viewpoint (and is attractive in appearance) involves making the gripper wings of some kind of channel section member, with the open side thereof facing the underlying garment - and thus of what may be regarded as inverted *U', 'V' or even 'W section member. The brooch as described herein is of course intended for use as costume jewellery, and should be made aesthetically pleasing in appearance. Accordingly the garment-remote surfaces of the gripper wings may be provided with an ornate pattern engraved thereon or with slots or apertures cut therein so as to form a given pattern or other design integral therewith and/or they may bear added embellishment in the form of for instance enamelling and/or they may support additional, non- functional and merely ornamental members, with or without mountings for precious, semi-precious or synthetic gems tones or the like. DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The invention will now be described in more detail, though by way of example only, with reference to the acooπpanying drawings, wherein: - Figure 1 is a side-elevational view, taken in the direction of arrow A in Figure 2, of a basic embodiment of neckwear brooch in accordance with this invention; Figure 2 is a plan view of the brooch as shown in Figure 1 ; Figure 3 is a part-sectional view of the same brooch, taken on the lines I-I' and II-II' in Figure 2; Figure 4 is a partly cut-away view, essentially from the same viewpoint as Figure 3, of the same brooch showing a scarf threaded therethrough; and Figure 5 is a plan view, similar to that of Figure 2, showing the brooch as if pinned in position on an underlying garment and with the ends of a scarf threaded therethrough. As can be seen from Figure 1 , the brooch comprises an elongate basal member 10, the garment-facing surface of which adjacent one end supports twin lugs 11 between which one end of a pin 12 is pivotally supported and biassed by a helical spring (not shown) towards its open position, but with the free end of pin 12 held in its closed position, as illustrated, by means of a catch 13 also mounted on the garment-facing surface of the elongate basal member 10 adjacent its other end. As can be seen from Figure 2, the elongate basal member 10 carries gripper wings 14 and 15, one extending on each side of the basal member. Each such gripper wing extends to its side of the basal member in a manner which includes components of direction both normal to and parallel to the elongate basal member; thus gripper wing 14 includes a proximal portion 14' essentially normal to the elongate basal member 10 and a distal portion 1 " essentially parallel to the basal member 10, but in between those proximal and distal portions it is shaped in an arcuate manner. In the preferred construction, as illustrated, the gripper wing 14 is semi- circular, running continuously without any gap therein from one proximal portion 14' attached to the elongate basal member 10 at one end thereof and directed essentially normal thereto, via the distal portion 14" directed essentially parallel to the basal member 10 but spaced apart therefrom, and finally back via another proximal portion 14' attached to the elongate basal member 10 at theother end thereof. The other gripper wing 15 is the mirror-image of wing 14, and need not be further described. Referring now to Figure 3, it will be seen that the gripper wings 14 and 15 have garment-facing gripper surfaces generally indicated 16. The gripper wings 14 and 15 are shallow, inverted 'U' section members, the lips of the channel section providing two concentric bearing surfaces 16' and 16" which together form garment-facing gripper surface 16. The gripper surface 16 lies in substantially the same plane as the garment-remote surface 17 of the elongate basal member 10. In use, as shown in Figure 4, the ends of a neckscarf 18 (or other neckwear) are tucked under the gripper surface 16 of gripper-wing 14, then over the garment-remote surface 17 of the basal member, and finally are tucked back under the gripper surface 16 of the other gripper wing 15. The serpentine fashion in which the ends of neckscarf 18 are threaded through the brooch ensures that they are thereby restrained from unthreading themselves, and the retention of the neckscarf in the desired location is further ensured by the frictional interlock between the neckscarf material and the underlying garment at the points where the gripper surface 16, or more particularly the bearing surfaces 16' and 16" thereof, bear down upon the neckscarf material forcing it against the underlying garment. As will be appreciated the threading of the neckscarf under the gripper wing 14, over the basal member 10 and again under the other gripper wing 1 5 involves pulling the neckscarf through the brooch, and so as to avoid any damage to flimsy neckscarf material both the gripper surface 16 (or at least the bearing surfaces 1 6' and 1 6" thereof) and also the garment-remote surface 17 of the elongate basal member 10 are sufficiently polished to ensure that the neckwear material is not snagged and thereby damaged. Figure 5 shows the general effect achieved by a brooch in accordance with this invention when used to anchor down the ends of a lady's neckscarf. The brooch, which may be made of precious metal or plated therewith is itself of aesthetically-pleasing appearance, and it can bear an ornate design, as for instance indicated at 19, and/or it may also include additional, non-functional but merely ornamental members, e.g. a garment-remote, neckwear-embracing ornamental bar as indicated at 20.

Claims: CTAIMS 1» A neckwear-retaining brooch comprising an elongate basal member, a securing pin for fastening the brooch to an underlying garment, the pin being attached at one of its ends to the garment-facing surface of the basal member in such a manner that it can be moved pivotally against spring bias from an open to a closed position and vice versa, catch means associated with the basal member whereby the other, free end of the pin may be releasably retained in its closed position, and at least one gripper wing on each side of the elongate basal member, each such gripper wing being connected to the basal member at or adjacent one of the ends thereof and extending therefrom laterally to one side thereof and also longitudinally in a direction generally parallel thereto, so as thus to provide garment-facing gripper surfaces spaced to either side of the basal member, the garment-facing gripper surfaces of the gripper wings lying in essentially the same plane as the garment-remote surface of the basal member, so that in use neckwear threaded first under one gripper wing, then over the basal member and finally back under the other gripper wing passes in a serpentine fashion through the brooch and will be thereby restrained from unthreading itself and also pressed by the gripper surfaces into firm frictional engagement with the underlying garment to which the brooch is pinned. 2. A brooch as claimed in claim 1 , in which the elongate basal member is of substantial width, so as to increase the area of frictional contact of the neckwear therewith. 3. A brooch as claimed in claim 1 , in which each gripper wing is of arcuate shape, running continuously without any gap therein from a point adjacent one end of the basal member to a point at or adjacent the other end thereof. 4. A brooch as claimed in claim 3, in which the arcuate gripper wing is of semi-circular shape. 5. A brooch as claimed in claim 1, in which the garment- facing gripper surfaces of the gripper wings are at least semi-polished, so as to avoid damage being caused thereby to the neckwear. 6. A brooch as claimed in claim 1 , in which the garment- remote surface of the basal member is at least semi-polished, so as to avoid damage being caused thereby to the neckwear. 7. A brooch as claimed in claim 1 , in which the garment- facing gripper surface of each gripper wing includes more than one bearing surface. 8. A brooch as claimed in claim 7, in which the gripper wings are of channel-section, open in the garment-facing direction.

Inventors: TAIT OLA MARY, TAIT, OLA, MARY
Applicants: TAIT J A & O M CO
Application year: 1990
Main classification: A44C1
IPC codes: A44B6