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Buttons for the Nineties
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20571 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1992 |
2,308 Words |
| Author
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Judith Bell
Judith Bell is an art historian and novelist based in
Arlington, Virginia. |
Buttons are definitely a trend of the early nineties," says Millicent Safro, who with her partner, Diana Epstein, owns tender Buttons, New York and Chicago button emporiums named after Gertrude Stein's ode to life's small pleasures. "Truly, the revival of interest on now is similar to what we saw during the 1960s, when pop art encouraged an interest in the commonplace."
The recessionary restraint of the 1990s is prompting a move away from the ostentation and excess of the previous decade and has nudged the humble button back into the spotlight. "People are more interested in value," says Safro, "in the little luxuries." Safro, whose buttons sell for as little as seventy cents and as much as $750 and date from the eighteenth century to the present, sees clients putting good buttons on inexpensive dresses or replacing the inferior plastic buttons on a cashmere sweater with something more befitting a fine article of clothing. "Buttons upgrade tremendously," she says. "It's a subliminal thing, like wearing good shoes."
But as Safro and others would argue, buttons are far from commonplace. Though the simple fasteners of our mass-produced age may be easily overlooked, in earlier times all the artistry and craftsmanship of the jeweler, enameler, painter, and glassblower were lavished upon these tiny utilitarian objects. Fashioned of gold, silver, brass, horn, porcelain, pearl, and plastic; adorned with jewels or stone and glass mosaics; framing tintypes; painted with landscapes or portraits; carved from ivory, jade, or mother-of-pearl, these microcosms of history have celebrated the inauguration of George Washington, the French Revolution, the building of the Eiffel Tower, simple pastimes, and the exaggerated elegance dictated by fashion. They bear witness to the trends that have shaped the history of Western art, from the excesses of Rococo to the abstract geometry of Art Deco.
A growing number of jewelry designers and craftspeople across the country are discovering the beauty of historic buttons and are fashioning them into one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry and accessories. Once the exclusive domain of collectors who displayed them at exhibitions on museum cards, buttons are enjoying a new incarnation on pins, earrings, bracelets, bags, and hand-painted clothing.
The majority of jewelry makers who are working today with buttons began as collectors. Robbie Namy's fascination with buttons began while she was studying art in Paris. "The French have a very different idea about how one goes about shopping," says Namy. "Mixed among the
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