Vintage BOHO Fashion -- Button Bracelets
Last year at an otherwise unrewarding estate sale, near the check-out table, the dealers showed a tangled assortment of costume jewelry. On the off chance of finding an interesting piece of sterling silver, I bent over the cases – and immediately scooped up five bracelets.
Primitive in construction and grimy with age, each stretched-out elastic band was filled with wonders. Black glass, pewters, pearls, calicos, and cut steels.
Button bracelets. I felt like dancing all the way home.
If you’ve been reading ‘Nelda’s Legacy’ for a few months, you already know the things that make my heart go pitty-pat. And this discovery set my heart racing, and the research path down a rabbit hole.
The earliest mention about button jewelry was found in a 1951 issue of Just Buttons: “It is not uncommon to see our collectors wearing jewelry made from buttons. Bracelets of little jewels, or even calicos and ringers are frequently seen at our get togethers. Tiny self-shank Czechoslovakian glass have been used to make necklaces. Even on the fingers buttons are seen these days.” In an article titled “ABCs of Button Fun,” Margaret Johnston called them “charm bracelets… attractive to wear and a good conversation piece.” (Ironically, in 1963 Just Buttons editors lamented that too many valuable buttons were being ruined by cutting off key parts to make button jewelry.)
In the late 1960s through the mid 1970s, button bracelets surged in popularity, right alongside the pricier charm bracelets featuring sterling silver trinkets. Part of the do-it-yourself renaissance, a cottage industry emerged, Merri-Bell Products of Columbus, Ohio. So far, research has not yielded much information about the company, but it appears that its sole product was making button bracelet kits. A search of federal records shows the company name and bracelet design were copyrighted in 1963 by Elizabeth M. Caldwell; it was renewed in 1974. The copyright described the product as “make-it-yourself button bracelet, knit or crochet. Kit contains approx. 24 unusual buttons, elasticized cord, and instructions.”
Merri-Bell got a boost for sales in 1974 when Good Housekeeping magazine featured the bracelet kit as one of its craft picks for holiday gift-giving. Around the same time, Marshall Field’s department store began selling Merri-Bell kits, too.
Merri-Bell was not without competitors, although no other company seemed to gain quite the traction with national outlets. Yet after 1975, the research trail goes cold; no business records exist in local or state archives. Obituaries for Elizabeth Caldwell make no mention of Merri-Bell Products and my usual button-collecting sources do not mention her name.
In keeping with National Poetry Month, let me share another a lost-and-found poem, written by Minerva Miner in 1967. Button geeks will recognize Minerva as the co-author of Button Heritage, one of the seminal books on collectible buttons. An ode to her creative sister, “Betty’s Bracelets” was originally published in Just Buttons (September 1967; Vol. XXV, No.12).
Betty’s Bracelets
Six years ago in Orlando
I went to a button show.
My sister was judging the entries
I was ‘tending the booth, you know.
I’ve always been known as a gal
Who would hang anything on her wrist.
Must be some Indian in me
For bracelets, I just can’t resist.
But when my husband came, bringing
Some that from buttons were made
I donned one with great trepidation.
“Now, this is quite crazy,” I said.
Of course I fell for a pink one
I have it yet, by the way
And that was just the beginning
Of what keeps me busy today.
Minerva started to nag me
“You know you love to crochet.
There’s no reason you can’t do it
You surely can find out the way.”
And that is the way it started
Now I have buttons galore.
The drawer of one table is loaded
And often they roll on the floor.
The modern ones are my favorites
I’ve even begun to collect
Bracelets are going all over
To make them now is my PROJECT.
Minerva sells them at “National”
Annie sends them out West
One order leads to another
Each girl likes her own the best.
Who knows but in some distant future
When MODERNS have become quite THE THING
Collectors will seek Betty’s Bracelets
As they now seek grandma’s charm string.
