button town usa
Buttons and History
This is a small history lesson on the rich and diverse journey of the button, so much more than a bit of glass or plastic.
Carved jet black Victorian buttons were worn by sophisticated women at the turn of the century. Colorful or homely, the Chinas date to the 1800s and the Celluloids reflect the high style of the Art Deco period. As the need for more practical and durable products surfaced between World Wars, Bakelite was utilized in button production. Quickly the practical evolved into some of the most beautiful examples of buttons as fashion and have never lost their appeal or their value.
These buttons have long survived the garments for which they were made. Their journeys from point of manufacture in the US, England, Czechoslovakia, France, and Japan to your wrist span more than time. Some buttons have lay buried in the soil of an old homestead for a century, most held as precious commodities in jars or tins during the Depression of the 1930s & ‘40s only to be tossed away a few generations later.
My love of history, art, treasure hunting, and collecting these tiny objects has produced the piece you have just purchased. We may not know the actual path each button has taken but they all reflect our collective past.
Thanks & enjoy your purchase.
