File:Dress fastener (front) (FindID 560481).jpg

English: Incomplete cast silver dress fastener, either dress hook or eye, with the head or terminal remaining, but missing its collar and hook or eye. The trefoil terminal is made of up of two bevelled arches with three petals emanating from each arch, and a central pine-cone between the arches with five petals surrounding it. The base of the arches is missing and has been shorn off from the rest of the dress fitting, which may have consisted of a hook or an eye. The dress hook has been designed on a plane with a flat back, which would not have been seen, and which retains horizontal file marks. The openwork areas under the arches would have originally been enclosed so that the hook could be sewn onto cloth.

Examples of dress hooks with similar decorative details have been recorded on to the database, for example three Treasure cases: 2002 T39, which is a silver dress hook in the form of a composite flower with similar ridged petals, 2004 T274, which is a silver dress hook in the form of a fleur de lis with circular openwork, and 2006 T214, which are two silver-gilt openwork dress hooks with radiating thistle heads and foliage around similar arched apertures, which are all dated from the 16th century.

Read (2008) illustrates both of these dress hooks and also two others with similar decorative details, one with openwork and a central hatched lozenge that looks like a pine-cone, and another with openwork, petals, trefoils and a central pine-cone, on pages 104 & 117, Nos.404 & 480, which are dated from the early Post-medieval period.