However, their flowing garments that were usually made out of a substantial amount of cloth required hefty buttons made out of strong materials like wood, horn, and bronze. These poked large unsightly holes into garments, and soon fell out of favor among Ancient Roman clothiers. Interestingly enough, Romans also invented the fibula as an alternative to the button.
This was an early version of the safety pin, though the design was lost until it was rediscovered again during the 19th century Industrial Era in the United States. These guilds regulated the production of buttons, as well as passed laws regarding their use. Though the buttons of the Middle Ages are already functional, they are still seen as a symbol of prosperity and prestige. A rash of button patents during this period protected nearly every aspect of button-making, from manufacturing methods for glass or mother-of-pearl buttons, cheaper wire buttons, even improvements to button display cards for sale.
With the growing number of actual buttons came a parallel growth in button metaphors in everyday speech. Once they became cheap enough to produce en masse, buttons by the hundreds lined most kinds of tight-fitting clothing, including shoes.
More buttons, closely spaced, gave the wearer the tightest fit. The solution? Buttonhooks, long crochethook-like devices used to draw buttons through holes rapidly. These evolved into various styles to accommodate different button sizes.
Buttons, in other words, designate sites of vitality, embarrassment, and thrill. Later in the century, buttons migrated as a metaphor from the mechanical world to the virtual one.
Buttons now adorn screens big and small, promising to connect us to marvels with a single click. Even though zippers entered the clothing-closure scene around the turn of the century, we still wear buttons today. Velcro, another new-fangled closure, is too futuristic to be taken seriously. Hook-and-eyes and laces have their adherents, but their ubiquity is nowhere near that of the button. Buttons, in short, offer everyday pleasures. Their little faces turn up agreeably, asking for personality to be impressed upon them.
Buttoning oneself up is a slower, contemplative act; unbuttoning someone else, deliciously more so. Pressing buttons still delivers everything we love in the world to us. Why would we ever phase that out? The buttons shown here, culled from the wonderfully abundant galleries at Button Country , demonstrate the wide range of materials used to make these ubiquitous fasteners. The button at top left uses glass on metal. The button at top right uses objects embedded in polyester.
The lower left button is ivory, finished with decorative paint. The lower right button is jasperware. The one on top shown front and back is made of iridescent abalone. The one on the bottom is the result of a wax-resist dye process. The seahorse is Japanese. The top one shown front and back uses woven tatting and ribbon. The bottom uses crochet over wound silk floss. As a result, the button became a status symbol, and it wasn't discrete; buttons were being used like there was no tomorrow - not just for fastening clothes but, once more, as adornment.
By the middle of the s buttons were big business and people loved them. Tailors produced garments with row upon row of buttons with matching buttonholes.
France, by this time, was the button capital of Europe and the Guild made considerable profit producing buttons for coats, dresses and anything that looked as if it needed a button. Europe was so button crazy that even the Church got in on the act and denounced them as 'the devil's snare', seemingly referring to the ladies in their button-fronted dresses.
This attraction for buttons resulted in some outfits adorned with thousands of buttons, all of them with accompanying buttonholes. Dressing and undressing became a chore, but created a niche for the employment of professional dressers. Button mania ran on unabated, and in reports tell of a meeting where King Francis I of France, his clothing bedecked with some 13, buttons, met King Henry VIII of England, similarly weighed down with buttons.
The button thing couldn't last forever though, and with the Puritans condemning it as sinful, in the 16th Century its popularity began to wane to more sensible levels 1.
That's not to say they weren't still very much in vogue; it's just that the number of buttons required to be at the height of fashion diminished. In response to this, the button-makers took to making more and more elaborate buttons. These artisans made their fancy buttons from precious materials like gold , ivory and even diamond. Diamonds would seem more than a little excessive for buttons, but in the First Duke of Buckingham reputedly had a suit and cloak covered in diamond buttons, although most were purely decorative.
Not everyone, however, could afford such a lavish display, so button-makers also used silver, ceramics and silk. Even artists of the day filled their time hand-painting portraits or scenery on buttons. Louis XIV adored his buttons and returned to the excesses of previous ages, but he also encouraged others by having his army wear silver-coloured bone buttons on their tunics. If you are in any doubt as to the importance of buttons in the 17th Century you could do worse than check out la Guerre des Boutons — not the film, but the actual war.
French tailors started the war and won the first battle with the use of thread buttons. These were basically little balls of thread which worked admirably as buttons. The button-makers were furious, and in response they lobbied the government to help them.
A law was passed and the war was won with the tailors being fined for the production of the thread buttons. Not satisfied with this, however, the button-makers went on to insist on the rigorous enforcement of the new law.
They wanted homes and wardrobes searched and even suggested the arrest and fining of people for wearing clothing with thread buttons. It is unclear how far they got with their demands, beyond the authorities fining the tailors for their ingenuity.
Towards the end of the s big metallic buttons were in vogue and this resulted in uniforms and outfits needing fewer. It also saw the introduction, apparently by Napoleon, of sleeve buttons on tunics 2. This didn't, however, halt the development of the double-breasted jacket. These jackets were much like the chef's jacket of today.
When the outside of the jacket was soiled the wearer just had to unbutton it and place the soiled surface on the inside then button the clean side outermost. Now that is practical. From the 19th Century buttons were mass-produced, but this didn't detract from the wide variety available; Dorset buttons, made from thread, competed side-by-side with bone and metal buttons.
0コメント