Improvements in Combined Shoulder Braces and Suspenders for Stockings and other Articles of Dress.
Year: 1899

page_text: Date of Application, 12th Dec., 1899--Accepted, 10th Feb., 1900
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Combined Shoulder Braces and Suspenders for
Stockings and other Articles of Dress.
I, ELLEN ROUSE, care of The Manager, London & Westminster Bank, High
Street, Kensington, London, W., Spinster, do hereby declare the nature of this
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
This invention relates to improvements in combined shoulder braces and sus-
penders, for stockings and other articles of dress, of the kind described in the
Specification of a previous application for Letters Patent dated 7th December
1898 No. 25,795 and which consisted essentially of a continuous length of elastic
webbing whereof the middle portion crossed the back of the wearer horizontally,
the portions of the band towards either side of the middle being looped upon
themselves to give passage to the arms and crossing each other and the middle
portion of the band at the centre of the latter and thence diverging downwardly
to the outside of the hips and thighs and being provided with adjustable means
of attachment to the article to be suspended a slip buckle being fixedly attached
to the centre of the length of the band, and having slits to give passage to the
crossed portions of the band so as to permit and maintain independent adjustment
of the shoulder loops.
It will be apparent that by employing a single continuous band to form both
the shoulder loops and the suspenders properly so called, any adjustment of the
length of the shoulder loops must disturb the adjustment of the suspenders and
vice versa, and it is one object of the present invention to obviate this disadvantage
by rendering such adjustments mutually independent; a further object being to
relieve the pressure of the shoulder loops around the arms of the wearer.
The invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings
forming part of this specification wherein Figure 1 illustrates, by a perspective
rear view the improved device as applied to supporting a pair of ladies' stockings,
Figure 2 being a perspective view, drawn to a larger scale, of that portion of the
combined braces and suspenders in which the improvement specially resides.
Figure 3 is a face view of the slip buckle.
According to the present invention, the shoulder braces are formed of a single
continuous length of webbing whereof the middle portion aa crosses the back of
the wearer horizontally at about the level of the arm pits, the portions of the band
towards either side of the middle being looped for the passage of the arms by
being passed under the arm pits as at band returned over the shoulders as at cc
so as to cross each other and the middle portion a a of the band diagonally at the
centre of the latter, where their free ends dd are passed through a slip buckle e
which is fixedly attached to the centre of the length of the band as described in
the Specification of the former application for Letters Patent already referred to.
This buckle e consists of a metal disc (see Figure 3) having two sets of slots ff.
ff approximately at right angles to each other and adapted to give passage to
the diagonally crossed ends of the webbing which are led each
f¹ fl SO that they lie across
through two opposite slots ff or
each

page_text: other on the face of the disc as shewn in Figure 2. The middle por-
tion a a of the length of webbing crosses the underface of the disc as shewn by
dotted lines and is made fast to the disc by stitches passing through holes gg.
The crossing of the webs at the rear face of the disc is concealed by a covering
disc of soft leather h secured to the metal disc e by the stitches passing through
the holes gg and by other stitches passing through holes g¹ g¹. The mere passage
of the diagonal members of the web d through the pairs of slots ff and ffl as
shewn ensures the retention of the shoulder loops at any length to which they
may be adjusted, without the necessity of any more positive engagement, whilst
permitting the adjustment of the shoulder loops to be varied at will.
According to the present invention the shoulder braces formed as above des-
cribed constitute a portion of the appliance complete in itself, and the suspenders
properly so called consist, not as described in the specification above referred to,
of prolongations of the free ends of the looped shoulder band, but of separate
lengths of webbing attached to the horizontal middle portion aa of said
band at points jj towards either side of the slip buckle e and about midway
between the latter and the arm pits at b, the webs ii being provided at their lower
ends with clips k as described in the specification above referred to, for attach-
ment to the article of clothing to be supported, these clips depending from
buckles by means of which the length of the suspenders may be adjusted.
It will thus be seen that the shoulder loops are each capable of adjustment
independently of each other and of the suspenders and that similarly the sus-
penders can each be independently adjusted to suit the requirements of (say)
stockings of different lengths, such adjustment of the suspenders (which might
of course require to be effected at any moment) involving no readjustment of
the length of the shoulder loops as might otherwise be necessary.
The points of attachment jj of the upper ends of the suspenders ii being by
this arrangement situated more directly over the points of attachment of their
lower ends kk than would be the case if the suspenders merely formed continua-
tions of the ends dd, the suspenders hang more nearly perpendicular and are
enabled to accommodate themselves to the movements of the wearer without so
great a strain being thrown either upon the suspenders or the braces as would
otherwise be the case; whilst any pull transmitted by the suspenders ii tends
merely to relieve the pressure of the shoulder loops around the arms as indicated
in Figure 1, without in any way affecting the adjustment of these loops by the
slip buckle e.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what
I claim is
The herein described combined shoulder brace and suspenders for stockings
and other articles of clothing, consisting in the combination, with a shoulde
band of elastic webbing looped to give passage to the arms and having ends which
cross each other and the middle portion of the band and pass adjustably through
a slip buckle fixedly attached to said middle portion, of separate lengths of elasti
webbing attached to the middle portion of the shoulder band towards either sid
of the slip buckle and provided with means of adjustment for length and of attach
ment to the stockings or other article to be supported, substantially as specified.
Total this 10th day of December 1899
A. M. & WM. CLARK,
Chartered Patent Agents, 53, Chancery Lane, London.
A. M. & WM. CLARK,
Chartered Patent Agents, 53, Chancery Lane, London.