Washington State Button Society Convention and Show
When: Friday, Sept. 16, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 17, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Where: Holiday Inn Express and Suites, 1441 E. Washington St., Sequim
Cost: Free admission and parking
Everyone wears clothes, but it’s a good bet most don’t give much thought to the buttons holding their garments together. So it might be surprising to learn there are indeed, people who do give thought to the seemingly everyday fasteners called buttons. One of those is Gloria Skovronsky, a 20-year button enthusiast and collector and the president of the Peninsula Button Club. Yes, there is a button club right here in Sequim.
The PBC is now preparing to host, for the first time ever, the Washington State Button Society Convention and Show on Sept. 16-17 at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites in Sequim.
“I have wanted other button clubs to come to the Olympic Peninsula for a long time,” said Skovronsky, who considers hosting the convention a coup and looks forward to showing off Sequim. The annual event alternates among cities within the state each year.
Her enthusiasm is contagious when she explains the ins and outs of button collecting and the upcoming convention. She wears a red badge with the letters PBC and the words “Roadside Assistance.” Wondering if she also was involved in some sort of highway helper program, she explained it’s the badge she will wear during the convention.
PBC, of course, are the initials of the club’s name and “roadside assistance” refers to her ability to steer her fellow button admirers in and around both the convention floor and the city for first-time visitors. After all, the theme for the convention is Take a Button Road Trip!
For the love of buttons
Skrovronsky and her husband Tom Skrovronsky share the love of buttons. The two landed in Sequim 14 years ago via Southern California and then Bellevue. However, Gloria Skovronsky remembers visiting friends in the area as a youngster and loving the area, thinking she would someday live here. And violá, here they are.
She is about as animated as it gets when talking about buttons, their history, collections, the convention, her fellow club members. Her husband is at the same level, having written two books on the subject of buttons.
“When my husband and I take a vacation, it’s to a button show,” she laughed.
Buttons are as old as clothing itself. Over the years buttons have been made of stone, pottery, wood, shell, flint, the antler of a deer, ivory, bronze, silver and gold. Early buttons, according to Ian McNeil writing in the “Encyclopedia of the History of Technology,” originally were used more as an ornament rather than a fastening. The earliest known button was found at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley, which is now Pakistan. It is made of a curved shell and is estimated to be about 5,000 years old. Early buttons consisted of a decorative flat face that fit into a loop since reinforced buttonholes weren’t invented until the mid-13th century.
A button packs an extraordinary amount of information about a given time and place, and provenance on its tiny face. Take, for example, Tom’s collection of livery buttons, buttons on the uniforms of household servants from the mid-18th century. These metal buttons often were decorated with the coat-of-arms from a particular country, in Tom’s case, France. Or, Gloria’s card of elephant-related buttons, which she said, took her four years to complete.
She loves animal buttons. “My mother collected elephant figurines and my sister and I used to love her elephant collection. It’s probably why I like the elephant buttons.”
Although an artist by profession, Skovronsky’s interest in button collecting began while working for a company in Bellevue that sold buttons. Skovronsky was asked to take the buttons to sell at at a show in Seattle.
“I walked in and fell in love (with the buttons),” she remembered. Inevitably she began collecting all sorts of buttons.
Now, Skovronsky breaks into a bright smile whenever showing one of her shadow boxes neatly arranged with buttons from around the world, from antique to modern, some more than 200 hundred years old, most from trading or finding treasures online at sites such as eBay. Her favorite? Twentieth-century buttons that accentuated clothing of the era.
‘Feed your collection’
Most collectors enjoy the historical facet of buttons. Some collect an entire costume, as well as the buttons holding it together. Skovronsky said she always tells club members to “feed your collection, because even if the button is brand new, it will eventually be discontinued.”
Another tidbit from Skovronsky: In the 1940s and during World War II, buttons were made of plaster of Paris and materials other than metal. Why? Because all the metal went into war weaponry.
Button collecting was recognized as an organized hobby with the founding of the National Button Society in 1938. Many state and local button clubs were established in the 1940s and many of those clubs began sponsoring their own button shows. The National Button Society now has more than 3,000 members worldwide, with 39 states represented by button clubs. Membership in the National Button Society is open to individuals and organizations who collect buttons and who support the objective of the NBS, which is the preservation of the aesthetic and historical significance of buttons for future generations.
For the convention, button buffs from Oregon, Idaho and western and eastern Washington will travel to Sequim with their button collections in tow, to share with one another and visitors, buy and sell and simply enjoy the company of those who share a deep interest in buttons.
A button, Skovronsky said, can sell anywhere from five cents to $1,000, depending on its age, condition and the “gotta have it” factor. One of the highlights for attendees is the annual button competition. Buttons must be displayed in 9-inch by 12-inch shadow boxes, which are then hung on racks throughout the convention room. Judges, one experienced, one new, and a clerk, decide on prizes for winners.
“We have 37 awards,” Skovronsky explained, “from $1 to $5, depending on the display. It’s the ribbon that’s more important than the prize.”
For the Peninsula Button Club members — and in particular, Skovronsky, — the anticipated convention certainly will be a weekend to remember and hopefully will entice the visiting clubs to bring their buttons back in the near future.
“It’s truly a lot of fun,” Skovronsky said, adding an invitation to “bring your grandmother’s old can of buttons and let us tell you what they are all about.”
The State Button Society Convention is free to the public from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16, and from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17. The event takes place at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites, 1441 E. Washington St., Sequim.
