The South African Defence Force was very keen on polished white accessories for its uniforms when they were being worn on the parade ground and we have previously looked at an example of a bayonet frog in white leather. Today we are looking at another of these white accoutrements in the form of a pair of anklets:

The design clearly draws inspiration from British Army practice as one would expect, but are made from a vinyl material rather than true leather and are more curvaceous in shape that British pattern anklets, indeed in shape they are far more similar to that used by Canada:

It is interesting to note that there is some staining around the bottom edges of the anklets. The SADF used brown boots so this staining is from the polish on the wearer’s boots. The anklets secure with two webbing tabs, each with a white metal tab crimped onto the end:

The buckles are also made of white metal rather than brass:

Turning the anklets over we can see that the back of them are brown and the original owner has scrawled his number on in pen to help identify his anklets from those of his comrades:

The anklets have a single label on each of them with sizing, manufacturer and stores code printed on them:

These anklets were only to be used on the parade ground and in period photographs of SADF parades their use can often be seen: