The Depression and pre-war years produced eye catching novelty buttons in a variety of materials, sizes and shapes.
New Buttons for Last Year’s Frocks
Novelty buttons were all the rage in the 1930’s. Like the costume jewelry developed during the depression, showy, colorful buttons were an inexpensive way to freshen up last year’s frocks when new ones were out of financial reach. A new dress from Sears might cost $2.98, a card of buttons 5 cents. French fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli sparked the button mania by emphasizing them on items in her collections. Her 1938 Circus Line included garments with buttons shaped like dancing clowns, trapeze artists, and prancing horses. Her Music Collection featured buttons shaped like a variety of instruments. Schiaparelli was so serious about her buttons that she commissioned Ecole des Beaux Arts-educated artist and chemist Jean Clement to design them.
Buttons in Plastic and More
Buttons were made of glass, porcelain, wood, pottery composite, celluloid, and metal, but by far the most common material was Bakelite. Invented in 1907 by Belgian born scientist Dr. Leo Baekeland, the material was developed for industrial uses, but by the 1930’s Bakelite and similar Catalin were enormously popular materials for fashion buttons. Available in a pleasing array of colors and impervious to heat and moisture, plastic could be carved, molded or laminated into a variety of shapes and styles.
Realistics
Usually sew-through types, these buttons tend to be small and are reproductions of a variety of common items featuring everything from golf clubs to guitars, carrots to cocktails. A series of animal buttons included a Scottie dog, inspired by Franklin Roosevelt’s terrier Fala. Sears Roebuck offered a dress with alphabet buttons that could be arranged to spell the wearer’s name.
Carved Platters
These heavily detailed buttons could be as large as 2 ½’’ and were typically found on coats, which is why they are almost always black or brown. During the Depression, coats especially were made "to do", so button updates were a common occurrence.
Cookies
These flat, sew-through buttons were sliced off a Bakelite rod in which two colors were mixed to form a usually geometric pattern, named thus for their resemblance to cookies made from sliced rolls of dough.
Button Collecting
Because of the popularity of Bakelite buttons in their day and the fact that every housewife had a sewing basket full of loose buttons, they’re still fairly easy to find. Book values seem high with realistics of fruit, sports, animals etc. valued at $30-$100 per set, cookies at $5-$40, and $5-$10 for common shapes and sizes of carved and molded buttons. Sets on original cards are easily found at antique shows from dealers of vintage textiles and sewing notions. Sets usually contain 5 or 6 buttons, and can range in price from $20-$40 or more depending on rarity and complexity. As with the jewelry, prices for Bakelite buttons have cooled lately, although demand is still high. A mixed lot of 26 nice but common buttons recently sold on eBay for $76.
REFERENCES:Collectible Fashions of the Turbulent 1930's Ellie Laubner Schiffer Books c 2000
