Aglet

Aglet (pronounced ag-lit)

(1) A tag or sheath at the end of a lace used for tying, as of a shoelace and made usually of plastic or metal; can be protective, decorative or both.

(2) A tip, originally of metal and often decorative, on a ribbon or cord that makes lacing two parts of a garment or garments together easier, as in corset lacings, "points" (lacing hose or trousers to jacket or doublet) or sleeves to a bodice (archaic sixteenth & seventeenth century use).  The aglet is still a part of dress uniforms in some militaries.

(3) An ornament worn on clothing, consisting of a metal tag on a fringe, or a small metallic plate or spangle; any ornamental pendant.

1400–1450: From the Late Middle English aglet, aglett & agglot from the Old French aguillete & Middle French aiguillette (a small needle), diminutive of aguille, the construct being aiguille (needle) + -ette (-et).  Root was the Late Latin acucula, an extended form (via diminutive suffix, but not of necessity an implication of smallness) of the Latin acus (a needle) from the primitive Indo-European root ak- (be sharp, rise (out) to a point, pierce).  Related were the Italian agucchia, the Portuguese agulha & the Spanish aguja (needle).  The alternative spellings aiguillette, aiglet & aygulet are used by some manufacturers.  Aglet is a noun; the noun plural is aglets. 

Lindsay Lohan Lightweight Leisure Breathable Running Shoes are available.  All use plastic aglets on the laces.

An aglet was sometimes known also as a catkin (spike of a flowering tree or shrub (especially a willow or birch) after fruiting, a 1570s derivation from Dutch katteken (flowering stem of willow, birch, hazel etc) which translates literally as "little cat or kitten”, diminutive of katte (cat).  The botanical connection to felines was because of the stems soft, furry appearance which had a resemblance to the lengthier kinds of a kitten’s tail.  It was cognate with the German Kätzchen and the Modern Dutch katje.  The ends attached to shoelaces were sometimes called catkins because of a similar visual connection.  Most of the earliest aglets probably were metal, glass or stone plastic hundreds of years away, although some were doubtless made from with fabric threads or thin strips of leather.  There’s more evidence of the metal ones in the archeological record because the survival rate of the hard materials is so much higher.  Known formally by cobblers as rabri threas igh somewere metalalso aiglet, (metal tag of a lace), they were created to prevent the fraying of boot-laces, making it easier to thread through the eyelet-holes, but later, certainly by the mid-fifteenth century and perhaps earlier, ornamental form had emerged for both men and women.

Variations on the theme.

The aglets may not first have been used for boot laces but rather as an alternative to buttons to fasten clothing.  Placed at the end of a ribbon, in addition to preventing fraying and permitting easier threading, their weight would have helpful when needing to find the end of the ribbon.  In ancient Rome, there would certainly have been a class divide in the aglet business, the poor folk probably using simple stones while those of the rich might have been fashioned from expensive metals, such as brass or silver.  Today, most aglets are made from a thin, stiff plastic and are used on more than just shoe-laces, cords, drawstrings and belts among the items with the handy terminations which can be functional, decorative or both.  Although there are a handful of fashion houses in Europe which still handcraft such things, most aglets are today applied by machines, the ones for shoes wrapping a plastic tape around the end of the lace, then using heat or chemicals to melt the plastic onto the shoelace and bond the plastic to itself.  Polyester laces can be crimped and heated so that an aglet is formed at the end out of the lace itself, the advantage being it’s less prone to falling off.

Aglets are available in various metals including stainless steel, titanium, aluminum, silver and gold.  The tiny size and defined shape of the device doesn’t lend much scope to designers seeking a decorative flourish beyond variations in color but bullets seem popular.

Phallus themed aglets exist but they seem not to be available for laces, instead being aglets in the other sense of the word: as ornamental pendant to be hung from the neck or attached to clothing.  The tradition of these reaches past antiquity and into pre-history, many societies known to have used fertility symbols.

Ri Sol-ju (b circa 1987) is the wife of DPRK Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) and she has sometimes appeared on state occasions wearing an aglet in the shape of the DPRK’s Hwasong-16 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM, left & right).  Analysts suggest her choice is jewellery is a layered political statement: (1) Eschewing a decadently Western display of gold, diamonds or precious stones over her tempting décolletage (centre), the demurely attired First Lady wears something crafted as a simple pendant in silver and (2) She is telling the world Kim Jong-un makes nuclear weapons sexy.