Sewing Argyll Jacket buttons

[OC Richard]

The tricky part is getting them all going exactly the same way!

Here's a thread I did delving into the Gaelic inscription on these buttons

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...ons-say-97809/

I should point out that these are Evening Dress jacket buttons, and are standard nowadays for all Evening Dress jacket styles

Prince Charlie Coatee
dress Argyll
Montrose shell jacket
Regulation Doublet
Kenmore Doublet
Sheriffmuir Doublet

and anything else the makers can come up with.

BTW it's common nowadays for all the buttons, both the functional ones that go through buttonholes and the nonfunctional ones that are sewn onto the surface, to have the same shanks.

Tailors in the old days would have found this unacceptable, because the long shanks on the buttons sewn onto the surface makes the buttons stick out and flop around in a sloppy way.

They had two ways of making the nonfunctional surface buttons lay flat and neat

1) sew the buttons directly on the surface but use buttons with very short shanks. (These are more difficult to sew on.)

2) have a small round buttonhole in the surface, the button passing through and being held by a Cotter Pin on the backside.

The advantage of the second option is that you can easily swap out buttons.

[Tobus]

The tricky part is getting them all going exactly the same way!

Are they even supposed to be aligned? I've never seen such, and have operated under the impression that whichever way they orient themselves is fine.

[OC Richard]

I was mainly meaning having the orientation make a diamond shape rather than have them oriented randomly.

The nice jackets I've owned have been done that way.

About the design, yes, I've seen jackets with the lion oriented the same way on all the buttons.

In like manner regimental buttons are all aligned in the same upright manner, on army jackets I've seen.

With the non-square, actually diamond-shaped ones there's only two ways a button can go, rightside up or upside down. These, at least, have all the shapes aligned, but we can't see the design.

[Verity]

Tailors in the old days would have found this unacceptable, because the long shanks on the buttons sewn onto the surface makes the buttons stick out and flop around in a sloppy way.

They had two ways of making the nonfunctional surface buttons lay flat and neat

1) sew the buttons directly on the surface but use buttons with very short shanks. (These are more difficult to sew on.)

2) have a small round buttonhole in the surface, the button passing through and being held by a Cotter Pin on the backside.

The advantage of the second option is that you can easily swap out buttons.

As a child I was told that the cotter pin method was preferable because you can remove the buttons if you need to 1) clean the jacket or 2) polish the silver buttons. That way whatever you are doing doesn't damage the other material.

Verity