Mother-Of-Pearl Buttons in Designer Clothes

[perlas]

I've noticed some really nice MOP buttons in designer clothing. Makes me wonder from what mussels or oysters they came from. You'll never know they're MOP until you turn them around! Here are some of them....

Prada.....

[perlas]

Gaultier....
(The iridescent part of the shell was at the back and they used the 'rough' part as front of the buttons.)

[perlas]

agnes b...

[GemGeek]

How interesting. It's like you're a fashion detective!!! I like the rough one.

[perlas]

d&g........

[perlas]

and my favorite button...

fendi...
(the buttons are iridescent brown. lots of rainbow colors. i don't see this type of shell in our area and i would love to make jewelry out of this type of shell!)

[perlas]

i just have to repeat the brown buttons. i would have made them into jewelry only if the brandname wasn't at the buttons.

[GemGeek]

Sorry, I cut in before you were done, but I love the brown ones, too! Definitely the best.

[Joan A]

I love shell buttons, some are dyed to match. I have a box full of shell buttons, I've collected them over the years.

Also see this link for an extreme example: I believe these are all shell buttons.

http://www.bivens.ca/images/button%20people.jpg

I also love the shell gaming chips the Victorians used. Here's an exampl;e made into jewelry.
http://www.silvasjewelry.com/images/jewelry5.jpg

[Caitlin]

Have you folks read the story of Billie Button? It is a turn of the 20th century saga of Billie's life from being part of a mussel shell to the finished button. It is cute.


LINK ---- BETTER LINK

[Caitlin]

Here is Billie himself

[jshepherd]

That was a fun book. I think it first hit this forum a couple of years back.
This is somewhat related if anyone is interested.

[knotty panda]

I ran across this article many years ago about how pearl buttons are made -- complete with pictures! I hope it downloads. Nope, it won't. I'll send it to Caitlin and see what she can do with it. It's really a neat article.

The "Pearl Professor"? Well, we all profess pearls, but is this particular professor someone we all know?

[pattye]

Those photos of the buttons are great, and I have never heard of that book before, but it is clever! However, lots of grandmothers had "button jars" where buttons were cut off the used garments headed for the "rag bag", and usually buttons were recycled on another homemade garment. I have some old abalone shell buttons also.

Pattye
so many pearls, so little time

[Caitlin]

I just happened to have a photo of my button box.