Don Hill
By Don Hill
Guest columnist
Buttoning a shirt, fastening a necklace, zipping up a dress from the back can all be frustrating at times.
Fastening up clothing has been a problem that goes way, way back.
Usually in the olden days, wealthy men and women had their valet or lady to help them. When visiting the Biltmore Mansion in South Carolina, they point out the couples staying there always had separate bedrooms. The reason being each had their own servant to help dress them, etc.
Why is a lady’s blouse buttoned opposite of a man’s shirt? Because the lady’s servant faced her when buttoning it. I guess a man buttoned his own. Well, Mary is not wealthy, but she has her man servant handy to fasten her necklace. Why are clasps so small? And I hate it when the button is larger than the buttonhole.
Of course, a little history. The word button is from the French word bouton, meaning bud or knob. Buttons, as ornaments, date back several thousand years. Until the introduction of the “buttonhole,” buttons fitted into loops. Some believe the crusaders introduced the buttonhole to Europe from the Middle East. Seashells, bones, horn, metal and wood were used to craft buttons in ancient times; however, in modern times, they are generally made from plastic, though shell, wood and metal are sometimes used for ornamental purposes.
In the mid-1800s, the women in America wore high-buttoned shoes, which were fashioned with a buttonhook. Of course, the shoes were high above the ankle. In those days, the men would hang around the train station hoping to get a glance of a bare ankle as the ladies got on and off the train. Boy, how times have changed.
From the button to the zipper took a lot of inventors and designs. Elias Howl, who invented the sewing machine, came up with the idea back in 1851 but never developed it. An inventor, Whitcomb Juddson, took the idea and produced it in 1893 and exhibited it in the Chicago World’s Fair, but it never caught on. Another inventor, Gidon Sundback, improved the design in 1913 and B.F. Goodrich used it in making boots.
By 1930, the idea caught on with children’s clothing so they could dress themselves. When Esquire magazine showed men’s trousers with fly zippers in 1937, it was all the rage. When women started wearing slacks, the zipper was on the side, so it didn’t look like they were wearing men’s pants. Ann Margaret changed all of that in her famous movie scene when she zipped her jeans up in the front. I notice things like that.
Velcro was invented by George de Mestral in 1941 when he picked burrs out of his clothes and studied them under a microscope.
Well, enough history. Back in the days when families found ways to entertaining themselves, you know back before the iPhone, families would play, “Button, button, who’s got the button.” If you can get your family together tonight, look up the rules and have fun. Good luck with that.
So I’ll button my lip and get out of here.
Don Hill is a resident of Seymour and a longtime volunteer for Southern Indiana Center for the Arts. Send comments to [email protected].