Buttons to knit up to

Beautiful handmade 1950s couture glass buttons.

"What does your father do?" That was the question I was most uncomfortable with when I was young. I used to say "He hand makes glass buttons" Then I would try to explain, but I knew it didn't work, it sounded as if he worked in a factory, or owned a button factory and he did neither, he did exactly what I said - he handmade glass buttons.

It's still pretty difficult now, "What do you do?", "I sell my father's buttons" again the embarrassed explanation - "he made buttons for the couture houses in the 1950s. I have his stock. I sell them on the internet. I go to things like the Knitting and Stitching show at the Alexandra Palace. I sell to designers." Even when I try to evade explanation and say "I run an internet business", I end up having to explain and it sounds bizarre even to me.

Everybody who sees the buttons says aren't I proud of my father, he must have been an amazing man and yes, I am proud and yes, he was amazing, like his buttons he was a one off, but it's all rather peculiar and socially I wish he had been a banker. The other thing people say is "How can you bear to part with them?" and "What will you do when they run out?" The answer to the first is I have a huge quantity, boxes and boxes which when I first opened them, after spidered decades, had the childhood smell of my father's workroom. I manage my desire to horde by putting new finds on the mantle piece in my study where they multiply and gather dust, until I swoop in, in sort out mode and bounce them back into stock. I am not saying I don't have the odd stash of specials but mostly they are all out there as otherwise I could not establish his true reputation.

My usual answer to the second question "What will I do when they run out?" is "Be very rich". Except, I suppose, I won't, as because they are exceptional, they are used on expensive one off garments or hand crafted ones, and there are only so many of those produced in a year, so it is a drip feed of riches not a windfall. They are most suited to tailored pieces, coats and of course knitted garments. They are too heavy for dresses and blouses and mostly too big. Fifties buttons were big, they were there for decoration far more than for fastening. They gave garments extra importance they were not an afterthought but integral to the design. My father would create a button to compliment the material, not to match it.

Buttons of the right colour will set off the colour of the garment. A set of complimentary buttons will work even harder for you. I invented my first set of 'friends' as I called them, for Pringle, who were doing a vintage line, which was selling too well and I knew my stock of tiny buttons would not be able to keep up. I suggested that I made up sets for each garment aimed at going with the colour but not being all the same. At the time I hadn't seen it done. Shortly after everyone was doing it. I don't claim to have introduced it, as in fashion simultaneous new ideas are quite usual. Its time had come, the button as the object trouve, something idiosyncratic, adding to the individuality of the garment.

That's why hand knitters like the buttons so much, as they have a weight that matches that of the garment, and each button has the vigour of being hand made. You can see how the glass behaved at that time and the colours can stand up to the most exceptional yarns, and frankly there are not so many beautiful buttons out there. One of the reasons that hand knitted pieces are so desirable is because the texture is interesting, it isn't a dead surface. You can see the variations of each stitch, you can see the maker in the surface and daddy's buttons are the same. They are vigorous, sloppy, confident, alive; it's the difference between something hand crafted and machine made.

The funny thing is my father went to huge lengths to create buttons which did exactly match each other. He would pack each garment set for the seamstress in tissue, selecting those that were most alike. The inevitable variations in colour and size made this a Herculean task. As a child my advice was sought, and I would proudly point out the ones that I thought didn't go. My father's solution was always to make more buttons for each order than he would need, so that he had a good chance of finding well matched garment sets. It is those rejects, the ones that didn't make it, that I am selling now.

If you would like to read more about my father or browse sets of buttons currently for sale then visit www.nicholsbuttons.co.uk