Count Your Buttons Day
Take a good look at your garments, and make sure they’re in tip-top shape. Count your buttons, and if you’re missing any, sew some on—or learn how!
Encourage garment care and DIY sewing skills with a nostalgic focus on button repair as a sustainable fashion habit.
- How-to sewing tutorial: Replace a button in 5 minutes
- Sustainable fashion tip: Extend your wardrobe's life with basic repairs
- Button history deep-dive: From seashells to Czech glass
Buttons have been around nearly as long as we’ve had clothing, being used for decoration and securing different pieces of clothing. Throughout the world, there is a rich history of buttons, from the earliest buttons as seashells straight through to the gorgeous Czech glass buttons with their ornate designs.
It wasn’t until sometime in the 13th Century in Germany that buttonholes first made an appearance. They were an almost immediate sensation, with them being nearly ubiquitous by the 14th century. From that point, buttons have been involved in every new clothing design that’s come up, and there has yet to be an era of clothing that hasn’t been graced by these beautiful notions.
During the industrial revolution, things changed again. Until the end of the 18th century, most people made buttons crudely at home, using cottage industry techniques. But with the advent of powered machinery, professional manufacturers, and factory standards, prices fell considerably. Suddenly, buttons and buttonholes became cheap and ubiquitous, allowing anyone to enjoy them, from the monarch at the top of society down to the poorest peasant at the bottom.
The most popular type of button in the late nineteenth century was made of black glass. The style was reminiscent of the buttons Queen Victoria wore to honor the death of her beloved Prince Albert. Despite being an act of personal mourning, the fashion caught on. Eventually, virtually all of high society had one garment or another with this unique adornment.
In the 20th century, the history of the button changed again. Mass production meant that getting hold of buttons was easier than ever before, and they began to find their way onto practically all clothes as a means of fastening them. They became so widespread that they became a recognizable symbol of working people.
Buttons, however, never came to be regarded as cheap and nasty. Despite being used extensively, they retained their status as a signal of quality. Even today, top designers rely heavily on buttons and will often use them in favor of other fastening methods, such as zips. Tailors use matte horn buttons to indicate higher-quality suits for their clients.