A button is a little fastener that links two pieces of fabric together in modern clothes and fashion design. It is most usually made of plastic, although it can also be made of metal, wood, or seashell. A button can be an important item in archaeology. A button can be folk art, studio craft, or even a little piece of art in the applied arts and crafts.

Buttons are most commonly found on clothes, however they may also be found on containers like wallets and bags. Buttons, on the other hand, may be stitched onto clothes and similar goods just for decorative purposes. Buttons that serve as fasteners are inserted into a fabric or thread loop, or into a buttonhole, respectively. Zippers, Velcro, and magnets are examples of other fastenings.

Buttons and button-like items were unearthed in the Indus Valley Civilization’s Kot Diji period (c. 2800″2600 BC), a black Albertite button at the Tomb of the Eagles in Scotland (2200-1800 BC), and Bronze Age sites in China (c. 2000″1500 BC) and Ancient Rome.

By 2000 BC, seashell buttons were being utilized for aesthetic reasons in the Indus Valley Civilization. Some buttons were carved into geometric designs and punctured with holes so that they could be threaded onto clothes. According to Ian McNeil (1990), “The button was first employed as an adornment rather than a fastener, with the first known example being discovered in the Indus Valley’s Mohenjo-daro. It’s roughly 5000 years old and composed of a curved shell.”

The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt left behind exquisite wig coverings made by stitching precious metal buttons onto strips of backing cloth.

The legionary Loculus (satchel) was closed by the insertion of a copper clasp, or button, into a leather slit, and leatherwork from the Roman Empire features some of the first buttonholes. Early medieval footwear might use a system similar to this. By the 5th century AD, buttons were being used to close cuffs in the Byzantine Empire and to fix the necks of Egyptian tunics.

In the 13th century, functional buttons with buttonholes for attaching or closing clothing first emerged in Germany. With the emergence of snug-fitting clothing in 13th and 14th-century Europe, they quickly became popular.

Because buttons have been made from nearly every conceivable material, both natural and synthetic, as well as mixtures of both, the history of button material composition follows the evolution of materials technology.

Buttons can be handcrafted by craftsmen, crafters, or artists from raw materials, discovered artifacts (such as fossils), or a mix of both by artisans, craftspeople, or artists. They can also be made in low-tech cottage industries or in high-tech factories in large quantities. Buttons produced by artists are considered art artifacts and are referred to as “studio buttons” by button collectors (or simply “studios”, from studio craft).

In 1918, the United States government conducted a comprehensive study of the international button market, which identified buttons made of vegetable ivory, metal, glass, galalith, silk, linen, cotton-covered crochet, lead, snap fasteners, enamel, rubber, buckhorn, wood, horn, bone, leather, paper, pressed cardboard, mother-of-pearl, celluloid, porcelain, composition, tin, zinc, xylonite, stone, cloth-covered wooden forms, and papier- For suits and shirts, vegetable ivory was believed to be the most popular, while papier-mâché was by and away the most prevalent type of shoe button.

Hard plastic, seashell, metals, and wood are the most popular materials used in button-making nowadays, with the rest being found exclusively in high-end or vintage clothing or in collections.

Qiaotou, Yongjia County, China produces almost 60% of the world’s button supply.

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