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.