• About WordPress
    • WordPress.org
    • Documentation
    • Support
    • Feedback
  • Log In
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • START HERE
  • CONNECT
    • FREE FUN Sign Up
  • ENGAGE
    • User Guide
    • Log In
    • Register
  • SHOP
  • FREEBIES

On2 In2

Find Your Fun - LIVE IT™

  • CHALLENGE
    • Air
      • Watch: High Flying
    • Athletics
    • Ball & Racket
      • Watch: Ball Games
    • Exploration
      • Watch: Climbing
      • Watch: Cross-Country Cycling
    • Martial Arts
    • Mind Games
    • Ride
      • Watch: Great Rides
    • Snow & Ice
      • Watch: Adventure Skiing
      • Watch: Downhill Runs
    • Target
    • Team
    • Water
      • Watch: Underwater Discoveries
      • Watch: Cranking Surf
  • CREATE
    • Visual Arts
      • Watch: Art Works
      • Watch: Photography
      • Watch: Thoughts on Filmmaking
      • Watch: Digital Arts
    • Performing Arts
      • Amateur Night LIVE
      • Watch: The Dance
      • Watch: Theatre Arts
      • Watch: Music Making
    • Creative Writing
    • Collections
      • Watch: Collector Confessions
  • CULTIVATE
    • Gardening
    • Cookery
    • Husbandry
    • Watch: Agrarian Pursuits
  • EXPERIENCE
    • Travel
      • Watch: Destinations
    • Adventure
      • Watch: Tours de Force
    • Nature
      • Watch: Natural Beauty
    • Gastronomy
  • ENLIGHTEN
    • Insight
      • Watch: Introspection
      • Watch: Creative Perspectives
    • Cosmos
      • Watch: Cosmos Channel
    • History
    • Science
      • Watch: Night Skies
      • Watch: Natural Sciences
  • MEDIA MIX
    • Live Streaming
      • Live Stream Program Guide
    • Video
    • Music
      • Special Concerts LIVE
      • Nashville Music LIVE
      • Watch: Music Videos
      • Watch: Classical Concert Series
      • Watch: Music Making
    • Books
      • BOOKS To LOVE ❤️
    • PLAYLISTS
      • Biodoc: Life Inspired
      • Biodoc: Super Dogs
      • Comedy: People & Phones
      • Comedy of Manners: Finding #Love
      • espnW Series: Run Mama Run
      • Fright Night Movies
      • Visual Soundscapes: Planet Earth
  • Live Stream Program Guide

Beautiful & Fascinating

February 28, 2020 By Zola Zeester 1 Comment

The memory of my grandmother, an avid ‘up-cycler’, carefully cutting off buttons from the family’s time-worn clothes and saving both the buttons and fabric for future use, is what probably inspired me to hold onto buttons.  Kept in a zip storage bag, my eclectic assortment has grown slowly over the years — It isn’t a large or valuable collection.  In fact, many of the buttons are quite ordinary, but they are uniquely mine, taken from my wardrobe, and they’ve become a collection of memories as well as a personal style timeline.  I’ve also used some of the buttons for arts and crafts projects, and they’ve often come in handy for button replacement.

“Le bouton est non seulement indispensable, mais capable d’enjoliver un vêtement, de le personnaliser et de lui apporter la touche finale.” *— Herbert de Givenchy, Introduction to Boutons by Loïc Allio (2001)  *The button is not only indispensable, but capable of beautifying a piece of clothing, of personalizing it and giving it the final touch. (Translation by Caroline Baumann, Director of Cooper Hewitt Museum)

Buttons have been placed on clothing as ornamentation for thousands of years, and crafted in a variety of ways by artisans and artists or manufactured in low and high-tech factories from every imaginable material, making these small objects significant in fields of decorative arts and design, fashion, visual art, and arts and crafts as well as archeology and materials technology.

Beautiful and Fascinating!  Long admired for the artistry as well as historical value, button collecting began centuries ago and is still a popular hobby today.  The photo gallery below includes just a few examples from extraordinary button collections.

 

Chinese, 249-210BC, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Walrus Ivory (Alaska 3-4th Century), Michael C Rockefeller Memorial Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Stone (8-10th Century) excavated in Iran, Rogers Fund, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Etruscan, 6th C BC, Rogers Fund, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Metal (American 1770-1800) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
18th Century, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Enamel (British, 1770) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Chinese (1770 – 1895) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Enamel 1780 (probably European) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Glass (French 1770) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
1770-1895, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
1770 -1895, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Glass (French 1775) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Glass (French 1780) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Glass (French 1780) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Hungarian button (1780) quartz, garnets & metal, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
French water color, 1780, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Pearls & Sapphires (French 1785) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Metal & Enamel (French 1785) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Mother of Pearl (British 1820-50) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Hanna S. Kohn Collection (1770-1895 American or European) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Hanna S. Kohn Collection (1770-1895 American or European) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
French enamel 1850-80, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
French enamel 1850-80, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
French enamel 1850-80, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Union Porcelain Works (1876) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Metal (Japan 1850) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Horn (German 1850) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Metal (British 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Metal (Thailand 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Glass (American or European, 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Glass (American or European 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Italian mosaic 1860, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Glass (American or European 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Glass (American or European 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Glass (American or European 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Metal (British 1850-80) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Metal & Enamel (British 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Semi-precious stone (British 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Glass (American or European 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Semi-precious stone (British 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Semi-precious stone (British 1880) Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD
Italian 1880, Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, PD

 

See More Glass Buttons (1700–1951, American or European) from the Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
→ Gallery 1
→ Gallery 2
→ Gallery 3

See More Wood Buttons (1900-20, American or European) from the Hanna S. Kohn Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
→ Gallery 4

The Cooper Hewitt button collection is amazing, and available to view online → HERE

Inspired Button Art – “I hold the button to my ear and it whispers to me, “I want to be…..” Augusto Esquivel creates sculptures from buttons, and he shares his work and creative process → Augusto Mucho Gusto website

Button Jacket by Kenneth D. King

Kenneth D. King created this stunning jacket using some of the 75 pounds of antique uniform buttons he inherited. [Pinterest pin “Using Buttons As Embellishment” by Threads Magazine]

 

 

 

 

   

Information/Resources:
Button Society Websites & Contacts – List of button society websites and contacts by country and US states
Button, Button, We’ve Got the Button(s)! by Margery Masinter (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, November 1, 2017)
Buttons: In the Collection of the Cooper Hewitt Museum by Carl Christian Dauterman (The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Design, 1982)

Hammond-Turner & Sons – Button Galleries – an online museum displaying buttons manufactured by Hammond Turner & Sons (and related companies), button makers of Birmingham (and Manchester), England.  Created by Lesley Close, a descendant of one of the owners of the company.
The Waterbury Button Museum – More than 3,000 buttons are on permanent display in the Button Gallery of the Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Connecticut
Déboutonner la mode (Unbutton Fashion), Les Arts Décoratifs exhibit presentation
Boutons, Decorative Arts Museum (Les Arts Décoratifs), Paris, France
Lucie Rie: Ceramics & Buttons Exhibit (22 June 2018 – 12 May 2019, Centre of Ceramic Art at York Art Gallery, UK
European Fashion Project – Buttons, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Keep Homestead Museum – Button Collection, Monson, Massachusetts – The vast collection is exhibited on a rotating basis, but on permanent display is a wonderful collection of mosaic buttons.

 

Button Button: Identification and Price Guide* is a well-organized guide recommended by the Button Society as a book that every button collector and dealer should own.

 

 

 

Buttons: The Collector’s Guide to Selecting, Restoring, and Enjoying New and Vintage Buttons* shows and describes fabric, metal, glass, ceramic, enamel, plastic, and uniform buttons along with the history of buttons.

 

 

 

Buttons by Diana Epstein and Millicent Safro* looks at the authors’ collections of buttons, describing their history and value as art.

 

 

 

 

Creating art with buttons is a fun arts and crafts project.
ⓒ Button Art by Zola Zeester

FREE To WATCH: Collector Confessions – A diverse group of engaging collectors tell their stories about lifelong passions for objects. [Videos on Demand]

 

 

 

It's easy and fun to join On2In2 social networkWe’d love to hear from you!  If you’d like to comment on this article, join the conversation, or share your inspiration, and you have not yet registered as an On2In2™ playmaker, please sign up via the ‘Engage page’.  Don’t worry, it’s pretty quick and easy (unless you’re a robot).

 

 

Get more fun delivered straight to your inbox. It's easy to sign up for the On2In2™ newsletter.

 

*Zeester Media LLC may receive a small commission for a book purchase you make via a link within this page.  This in no way affects the price you pay for the purchase.
Feature photo “My Button Collection” © Zeester Media LLC, 2015-18

Filed Under: Collections, History, Visual Arts Tagged With: Art, Arts & Crafts

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Zandy R says

    November 16, 2019 at 5:33 pm

    Going to have to find and check out my ziploc bag of buttons. I doubt that I have any as beautiful as some of the works of art, but you never know.

    Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Log In/Log Out

LOOKING For Something?

FREE 2 WATCH: Downhill Runs

Mountain and snow make for fun skiing. Watch the best videos of winter fun on skies and boards.

FREE 2 WATCH: Love Stories ❤️

Finding love in a candy box of assorted chocolates

FREE 2 WATCH: Planet Earth Video Series

Watching nature videos can take you away from the stress of the day and bring on an feeling of happiness.

FREE 2 WATCH – Creatives @ PLAY

In this collection of video documentaries, artists reveal thoughts and feelings about their work and living a creative life.
https://youtu.be/DLgDKeih7hQ
Find recommended titles from the book lovers at On2In2™ Book Buzz Club.

FIND YOUR FUN

Alternative Apps Art Arts & Crafts Astronomy Baking Bicycle Biography Birding Boating California Concert Dance Digital Art Documentary Drinks Ecotourism Entertainment Environment Exploration Folk FREEBIES Genealogy Glacier Hiking Humor Indie Jazz Music Ocean Photography Planet Earth Poetry R&B Recipe Rock Skiing Soul Space Travel Stargazing Surfing Tennis Thriller Wildlife Wine

FUN FOR YOUR INBOX

Footer

MUCH 2 SEE

  • Watch: Cosmos Channel
  • Watch: Natural Beauty
  • Watch: Night Skies

THINGS 2 DO

  • Create
  • Cultivate
  • Challenge

PLACES 2 GO

  • Travel
  • Adventure
  • Watch: Destinations

PEOPLE 2 MEET

  • Biodoc: Life Inspired
  • Insight
  • Play With Us

FOOD & DRINKS

  • Cookery
  • Gastronomy
  • Watch: Agrarian Pursuits

JUST LAUGHS

  • Comedy of Manners: Finding #Love
  • Comedy: People & Phones
  • Dog Speak

Copyright © 2021 · Zeester Media LLC· Privacy & Security· Terms