ボタン、通常は円盤状の固い素材の部分。穴またはシャンクを介して、それを衣類の片側に縫い付け、反対側のループまたは穴を通過させることにより、衣類を留めたり閉じたりするために使用します。純粋に装飾的で実用的でないボタンも衣服によく使用されます。
中世ヨーロッパでは、13世紀にボタンホールが発明されるまで、衣服はひもで締められるか、ブローチや留め金とポイントで留められていました。その後、ボタンが非常に目立つようになり、場所によっては、法律が制定され、使用が制限されました。
14世紀までに、肘から手首まで、ネックラインから腰まで、装飾品や留め具としてボタンが着用されました。金、銀、象牙のボタンの着用は、富と地位を示していました。高価なボタンも銅とその合金でできていました。金属職人は、そのようなボタンを象牙、べっ甲、宝石のはめ込みで頻繁に装飾しました。より一般的には、ボタンは骨または木でできていました。これらの素材のボタン形状は、布地で覆われたボタンの基礎としても使用されました。スレッドボタンは、ワイヤーリングに糸を巻き付けることによって作成されました。
18世紀には、ファブリックに代わって高級金属と象牙が使用されましたが、特定の衣服を補完するデザインの刺繍ボタンが人気でした。時代遅れの金属であるピューターを使用して、型押しまたは型押しされたボタンが作られましたが、これらは裕福な人から軽蔑されました。装飾の際立ったデザインの真鍮のボタン、特にカラミンの真鍮をキャストすることも、軍服と民間服の両方で人気がありました。
In the middle of the 18th century, Matthew Boulton, the English manufacturer and partner of James Watt, introduced the bright, costly, cut-steel button, which was made by attaching polished steel facets to a steel blank. In France the facets of the cut-steel button were elaborated by openwork designs. During the first quarter of the 19th century, a less costly stamped steel button was made in an openwork pattern. Brass buttons that were gilded by dipping in an amalgam of mercury and gold also became popular.
The two-shell metal button was introduced about the same time as the stamped-steel type by B. Sanders, a Danish manufacturer in England. The two shells, thin metal disks enclosing a small piece of cloth or pasteboard, were crimped together on the edges. Sanders also originated the canvas shank. By 1830 fabric-covered buttons were being made mechanically. Also coming into use were animal horns and hoofs, which could be made malleable by heating and then could be cut, dyed, and molded.
Buttons were also made of ceramics and glass. Porcelain buttons became a French specialty; they were decorated by hand painting or by transfer printing designs using coloured inks. Bohemia, in the present-day Czech Republic, produced most of the coloured glass used in button manufacture.
In Japan, ceramic buttons, hand painted in traditional motifs, were developed. Buttons with an intricately carved thickness of vermilion lacquer on a wooden base became a Chinese specialty, and decorated and lacquered papier-mâché buttons became popular in Europe in the late 1800s.
The use of the pearly shells of sea mollusks in button making increased with the mechanization of production. Shell was separated into its component layers by treatment with a nitric acid solution, and blanks were cut out by tubular saws. Holes were bored in the blanks for sewing, and an engraved decoration was mechanically applied. At first only seashell was used, but in the 1890s the American manufacturer John F. Boepple began to use the less iridescent but abundant freshwater mussel shells found along the Mississippi River and its tributaries.
In the 20th century, buttons became primarily utilitarian, not decorative, and in many applications were supplanted by the zipper. Buttons began to be made of plastics such as cellulose, polystyrene, and polyvinyl resins; designs tended to be abstract or geometric. Mass-production machines produce molded buttons either by compressing powdered plastics or by injection—forcing liquid plastic into individual molds through small openings.
Some old buttons are considered valuable and are collected for their art and workmanship. The place, date, and name of the maker are usually marked on their backs.
