We almost went right by it, my sisters and I, as we walked along
62nd Street in Manhattan on a humid morning in July. Luckily, the golden button
hanging above the storefront caught our attention and we found ourselves on the
doorstep of Tender Buttons, a shop that's been beloved by button collectors and
needle artists of all sorts for more than five decades.
I first learned about Tender Buttons in the 1980s when I was
working as an assistant copy editor at McCall's Needlework & Crafts
magazine. Before each issue's photo shoot, the fashion editor would make the
short trip from our office on 53rd Street to Tender Buttons to select the
perfect buttons for the knit and crochet sweaters that would be featured. Back
in the copy editing office, we made sure Tender Buttons, along with the yarn
companies, was credited in the captions. After the issue was published, I was
responsible for sending tear sheets to each credited vendor. Although I found
the buttons that came out of Tender Buttons beautiful, twenty-something me wasn't
curious enough to visit the shop in person.
My recent trip to Tender Buttons was overdue by about 35 years,
and admittedly accidental, but it was well worth the wait. The tiny shop, with
its black-and-white tiled floor, vintage lamps, and wooden furniture and fixtures, is enchanting. (It
reminds me of Ollivander's Wand Shop from the Harry Potter movies, only much cheerier and tidier.)
The main attraction is the buttons, which occupy the
hundreds of identical stacked boxes that fill the shop's shelves. Samples of the
buttons contained in each box are fastened to the front, accompanied by a hand-printed
price and description. The collection represents a range of time periods, places,
sizes, shapes, colors, materials, and prices. There are buttons made of brass,
wood, leather, antler, plastic, and other natural and manmade materials. You
can find antique buttons from France and Italy, less exotic contemporary
buttons, and others that are cute and kitschy.
Of course, I couldn't leave without making a purchase. We could
have spent hours at Tender Buttons oohing and aahing over our finds. Since we
had a bus to catch, we limited out stay and I eventually settled on three very
different and very unique buttons.
The checkout experience was as delightful as the rest of our visit. We chatted with the woman at the counter, who told us she has worked at the store for about thirty years. She completed the transaction with a hand-written paper receipt and generously let us take as many photos as we liked of the shop's interior.
As soon as we left, I regretted not buying more buttons. But I could always just order more online, right? Not really. As you may have guessed, Tender Buttons is an old-school operation. There is no Instagram account or Facebook page. There is a website -- www.tenderbuttons-nyc.com -- but you can't order buttons there. However, you can read about the history of buttons -- and the fascinating history of the Tender Buttons shop (which, according to the website, was named after the title of a Gertrude Stein novel). You can also take a photo tour of the store and make inquiries on the contact page.
For me, the shop's lack of social media presence adds to its charm and makes my visit and purchase more special. If I want to find more unique buttons, I'll just have to make a return trip to Tender Buttons. In the meantime, I'll work on designing some special sewing and crochet projects worthy of the buttons I bought on my first visit.
