Button

A button is a fastener used to connect two pieces of fabric, either by passing through a loop or sliding into a buttonhole. Today, buttons are often plastic, but they can also be metal, wood, or seashell. They appear on containers like wallets and bags as well. Some buttons are sewn onto clothing purely for decoration. In crafts and applied arts, a button might be considered folk art, studio craft, or even a tiny work of art. Archaeologically, buttons can be important artifacts.

The earliest known button-like objects, used as ornaments or seals rather than fasteners, come from the Indus Valley Civilization’s Kot Diji phase, around 2800–2600 BC. Buttons as clothing items have been found in Russia’s Catacomb culture (2500–1950 BC), Scotland’s Tomb of the Eagles (2200–1800 BC), Bronze Age China (c. 2000–1500 BC), and Ancient Rome. The Indus Valley Civilization used seashell buttons for decoration by 2000 BC, carving them into geometric shapes with holes for thread. Ian McNeil (1990) notes that the button was originally more ornamental than functional, with the earliest known example—a curved shell from Mohenjo-daro—being about 5000 years old. Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty created ornate wig covers by sewing precious metal buttons onto backing strips. Roman leatherwork includes some of the first buttonholes, with legionaries’ loculus closed by inserting a metal buckle or button into a leather slit, a method later seen in early medieval footwear. Buttons were used to close cuffs in the Byzantine Empire and fasten Egyptian tunic necks by the 5th century.

During the Middle Ages, European Crusaders may have brought the button loop from the Middle East, enabling more fitted men’s garments. Vikings also used buttons, learned from trading partners. Before buttonholes, fabric pieces were butted together and secured with toggles, belts, or lacings. Buttonholes for clothing first appeared in 13th-century Germany. Button-making guilds emerged in the 13th century. King Louis IX of France initially grouped button makers with rosary makers, but later regulations split them into three categories: those working in horn, bone, and ivory; those using metals; and those using precious metals and glass.

The Renaissance’s fitted fashions, like the doublet jacket, required rows of many buttons. Detachable sleeves, used in Florence since the 1200s, offered another use for buttons, allowing sleeves to be swapped for washing or fancier occasions. Women’s fashion still used lacings, so buttons on their clothing were mostly decorative. Buttons became luxury items reflecting wealth and status in Renaissance courts, some made of precious metal and jewels. To move these valuable buttons between garments, they were often not sewn on but pushed through fabric and held with metal strips through the shank. Cheaper buttons were made from wood, bone, brass, and pewter.

In the 17th century, fabric-covered and embroidered buttons became popular in Europe, often small and decorative rather than functional. Early 17th-century short jerkins, wide breeches, and cloaks could be adorned with dozens of lightweight buttons. The mid-century French justaucorps coat had buttons from neck to knee, buttoned cuffs, and buttoned pocket flaps. French law, protecting the silk industry in Paris and Lyons, required buttons to be silk-covered. England, however, banned fabric buttons in the late 1600s and early 1700s, as tailors making them from leftover fabric threatened the button makers’ guild.

Since at least the 17th century, box-like metal buttons have been used by drug smugglers to hide and transport illegal substances, a method still used by at least one modern smuggler. During the World Wars, British and US military locket buttons contained miniature working compasses.

Buttons have been made from nearly every natural and synthetic material, and combinations thereof, so their material history mirrors the timeline of materials technology. They can be individually crafted by artisans from raw materials or found objects like fossils, or produced in low-tech cottage industries or high-tech factories.