Hand worked Buttonholes

Hand worked buttonholes are a hot topic these days on the discussion forums.
A sign of bespoke craftsmanship and a badge of honour to many, and subject to discussions of technique and materials to use, from needle size to which brand of silk thread and gimp.

Obviously, buttonholes needed to be made by hand before the invention of a machine that could make them and even then, the machines were, and are, expensive and generally limited to factories which could justify the expense.

Many people who are interested in the craft of tailoring are keen to learn these hand sewing skills and all the power to them. I too, learned the art of the hand sewn buttonhole and was equally enamoured of it.

I think for me the pleasure wore off after a time, due to the volume of buttonholes we were making at work because we didn't have a machine. Hours and hours spent on the buttonholes(always under time pressures too). Some people made them more beautifully than others and there were debates about the nicer form, whether an elongated teardrop shape or a pronounced keyhole was better, but I have to admit that some of the nicest ones you will see are found on vintage coats.

One of these vintage coats appeared in a fitting the other day, to be used in a show. It was a cutaway coat, I'd say from between 1910 to 1920 anyway, and look at these buttonholes.

Not bad for their age, don't you think?

We got a Reece industrial buttonholer at work around 15 or so years ago and to be honest it was a relief to have it. If you are good making them by hand, you can do one in 20 minutes, but now it is maybe a minute each including the prepping before going to the machine. If you have 90 buttonholes on a period costume, or even just a dozen or so on a suit, the time saved is enormous.

Some may say that hand sewn buttonholes aren't needed on costumes, and that may be true if you have options. We didn't, but now we do. The downside is that some of my colleagues have never made a hand sewn buttonhole, so that isn't good for maintaining traditional skill sets. The upside is that it is a skill that can be learned and there are people still interested in having that finishing touch on their garments.