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“Hanging by a thread” or “A button placket, but they are all different”

Anatolijs Venovcevs, Staff Archaeologist:

This object is so ubiquitous because it is virtually unthinkable to live without it and yet, after every major excavation, it has been generally overlooked. This is the common button.

A button is considered a small disc or knob sewn on to a garment, to fasten it by being pushed through a slit.

Also:

A button is a small device on a piece of electronic equipment which is pressed to operate it.

For my research I concentrated on the garment button.

The invention of the button is credited to the Indus Valley civilization (today North India and Pakistan) around 5000 years ago. Fixed through a loop at the back it was sewn onto garments to communicate wealth.

This is the oldest one that was found:

I chose to divide the buttons by materials, which then is closely linked to their date and the garment they were meant for.

Bone: Buttons made from bone are probably the oldest kind known to humans. They were made from the shinbones of various animals and any farmer with a dead animal and a lathe could make them. Produced in early 18th century, popular until 1850s, then replaced by horn. Normally used only practically, historically for pant flys or underpants.

Metal: Made from pewter, brass or aluminium. Sometimes covered with fabric

Shell: First appeared in the 1820s for an undershirt for King George IV. Often quite fragile, which is why they are very little archaeological findings. Often used on shirts, as small four holed models. Made from molusc shell. Photo shows a shell after the button blanks where cut out.

Ceramic: Moulded in porcelain, first patented in 1840 by Richard Prosser. This made Ceramic buttons accessible to the working class.

Wood: Cut from wooden blanks or turned on the lathe.

Plastic: Normally injection molded in every shape and color imaginable.

The different typologies/shapes of buttons:

Sew on buttons:

Tack buttons

Amount of holes and how to attach them: * * * * *

Until the Victorian era a large quantity of buttons was seen as a status symbol (Ferris 1986:98)

Unlike today, buttons were bought and sold separately from the garment they were attached with. I like that thought. We all enjoy the advantages of pret-a-porter clothing, but sometimes they just do not fit. Use a button as a tool to make them fit!

My proposal:

• Everyone brings a garment that does not fit the way you like it.
• You also bring a piece of scrap material of your liking.
• We will learn to make a button from it, place it additionally to the garment.
• Fit a new buttonhole.
• You will walk home with your new tailor-made piece.

Buttons I have made so far:

Text sources: Dress for Life and Death: The Archaeology of Common Nineteenth-Century Buttons Anatolijs Venovcevs, BA Hons, Staff Archaeologist Archaeological Services Inc., Toronto Paper written and presented for the 23rd annual Forward Into the Past Conference April 6, 2013, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario