GIFT BOOKS IN BRIEF : CUFF LINKS <i> by Susan Jonas and Marilyn Nissenson </i> (<i> Harry N. </i> Abrams: <i> $35).</i>
It’s usually a bad sign when one must resort to French to discuss anything but food. Yet the utter gorgeousness of the luxury wares in “Cuff Links” demands the phrase “Le superflu, chose si necesaire “ (“the superfluous, such a necessary thing”) coined by Oscar Wilde--or Proust (and if it wasn’t their phrase, it should have been).
This is far from an off-the-cuff history of novelties, though it ranges from Restoration diamond cuff buttons to 1950s gold-nugget links with uranium ore certified not to be radioactive. It does more than answer the question, “Why bother when there are plastic buttons?” It is also a reminder that men can rival women in the love of adornment, without being dandies or fops.
Be warned, these are not the $5.95 “Swank” links you gave your dad for Christmas, 1963. These are museum-quality objets described in words that feel like candy in the mouth: calibre-cut rubies, guilloche enamel, carnelian intaglios, matte platinum.
If you can’t afford such links as a gift, you can give this book, to men who care about how they dress--or should.
