Button

A Small Disc and a Slit

The button is one of the simplest fastenings in clothing, and its definition contains the whole mechanism. A button is a typically thin, small disc of hard substance, attached to a piece of cloth by stitches sewn through holes in its centre. The most common use of buttons is to secure the openings of garments, by sliding the button through a slit in the piece of cloth to which the first is to be held. That slit, the buttonhole, is only sufficiently wide to allow the button to be fully pushed through while still remaining stitched to the first piece of cloth. Once through, the disc is wider than the slit is long in its resting state, so it cannot slip back without being deliberately worked through again. Two pieces of cloth are thus held together by a fastening that needs no knot, no pin and no second device, and that can be opened and closed repeatedly along a shirt front, a cuff, a waistband or a coat.

Fit between button and slit is the practical heart of the system. A slit cut too large lets the button slip out under strain and the garment gapes; a slit cut too small makes fastening a struggle and stresses the stitches at the button and the edges of the hole. The button itself must be hard enough to keep its disc shape through repeated pushing, pulling and laundering, which is why buttons are made of hard substance rather than cloth alone. The stitching through the holes in the centre must be strong for the same reason: every fastening pulls directly on those stitches. A well-matched button and buttonhole feel firm but not forced, and that feel is the everyday test of the definition in use.

Materials and Decorative Use

Buttons are made in a wide range of hard materials, and the material often signals the garment's quality and purpose. Buttons are produced in metal, polyester and other plastics, urea, wood, coconut, bamboo, bone, shell and pearl, and in natural horn including deer horn, buffalo horn and ox horn, with finishes such as laser engraving on some types. Natural materials like horn, bone, shell and coconut vary in colour and grain from piece to piece, which suits tailored and traditional clothing, while moulded polyester, plastic and urea buttons give uniform size, shape and colour for large-scale garment production. Whatever the material, the form stays the same: a thin, small disc with holes in its centre for the stitches that attach it.

Buttons are also sometimes used for decorative effect, with or without a practical function. A decorative button may sit on a cuff, a pocket flap, a shoulder or the back of a dress where no opening exists, contributing colour, shine or material contrast to the garment's design. In other cases the same buttons both fasten and decorate, as on a tailored jacket front, where size and material are chosen to be seen as much as to work. That double role connects the button to the wider family of garment fastenings and trims, alongside rivets, zippers and cufflinks, each solving the problem of closing or finishing cloth in a different way. The button's answer, a stitched disc passing through a slit just wide enough to receive it, remains the most familiar of them all.