The plastic or metal tip of a shoelace.
The aglet has a far grander name than its size suggests. It descends from the Old French aiguillette, a diminutive of aiguille — needle — from the Latin acus. The lace was a needle; the metal tip was what let it pierce the eyelet. Before buttons became common, points tipped in this way did the work of fastening a whole wardrobe together: doublet to hose, sleeve to shoulder, armour to arming coat.
When the Tip Was the Ornament
In the sixteenth century the aiguillette was a display object in its own right. Tips were wrought in silver, gilt and enamel, and worn in profusion — a gentleman might carry dozens about his person, most of them fastening nothing at all. The military dress uniform preserves the fossil: the braided cord looped across the shoulder of a full-dress tunic is still called an aiguillette, and still terminates in two metal points.
A Test of Finish
The modern aglet is usually a sleeve of cellulose acetate, heat-shrunk onto the lace and trimmed — a perfectly sound solution, and one used at every price point including the highest. Where a house chooses metal instead, it is making a point: brass, nickel or silver, crimped onto waxed cotton, occasionally stamped with the maker’s mark. The tip is also among the first components a manufacturer under cost pressure will thin, and a lace that frays out of its aglet within a season is a fair indication of where the savings were found.
The lesson generalises across the industry. Trims, findings and components have their own buyers, their own suppliers and their own quality standards, and the people who manage them are the reason a finished piece feels considered all the way to its extremities.