Anatomy of an Epaulette

A captain's epaulette holds four bars of gold and one curl. From across a room it reads as a single object. Up close, it is fifteen separate operations.

We begin with the board itself — wool felt over a stiffened buckram core, cut to a regulation footprint and pressed flat overnight. The stripes are gold-mylar braid, laid by hand, then couched with a single matching silk thread that takes the eye to a stop at each end.

Done well, an epaulette weighs almost nothing, sits flush against the shoulder seam, and lasts the rest of the career. Done badly, you can see it from the far end of a hangar.