Buttons or zippers, which do you prefer on your clothing? Zippers are so convenient, but buttons actually changed the face of fashion when they were invented.
Now, that is a pretty heavy reputation to get to carry around, and the very talented and charming fashion designer, Isaac Mizrahi, has explained just how the invention of the button revolutionized the fashion world. He did so during a 2018 episode of the TED series Small Thing Big Idea.
As he joked in his talk below, “There is no bad button, just bad people.”
He then went on to talk more about the origin of the button, saying, “No one knows who invented the button. It might have shown up as early as 2000 BCE. It was decorative when it first started, just something pretty sewn onto your clothes. Then about 3,000 years later, someone finally invented the buttonhole, and buttons were suddenly useful.”
As for what Mizrahi prefers himself…well, you guessed it! It’s buttons. He prefers them over any other method of securing clothing together, such as velcro or zippers.
He shared his reasonings and explained that there are many different arguments for why buttons are best. It’s not just based on convenience, it’s also because they don’t make noise, they last longer, plus they can make a fashion statement of their own too!
Mizrahi said, “Zippers break; Velcro makes a lot of noise, and it wears out after a while. If a button falls off, you just literally sew that thing on. A button is… there for the long run. It’s not just the most elemental design ever, it’s also such a crazy fashion statement.”
Watch the video below:
What do you think of the button’s history? Do you prefer buttons on your clothes? Let us know!
