Dorset Button Exhibition at Gold Hill Museum

Bankholiday Weekend from Saturday 25th to Monday 27th May

Just under eight hundred people visited the first exhibition dedicated to Dorset Buttons at Golf Hill Museum.

Textile artist Sally Webster with her fabric pieces modelled on the High Top and Dorset Knob Buttons 

A work in Progress

Ancient and Modern
by Anna McDowell

Using fabric created by Beaudesert Fabrics using drawings by the celebrated fashion, portrait and war photographer Cecil Beaton and the ancient technique of Dorset Buttons.

Cecil Beaton lived at Ashcombe House, Wiltshire.



Re-enactors costume

Jacket from Gentleman's blue suit

Hand-dyed blue linen, embroidered with vertical bands of silver plaited braid stitch. The background is worked with oak leaves and acorns. The 4-tabbed doublet design was popular in the late 1630s and early 1640s.

The buttons are based on the High Top Dorset Button design.

The buttons are based on the original High Top Dorset Buttons.

 

 

 

Some of my most recent buttons

Dorset Buttons
Email Henry's Buttons

Over 400 years ago a man fell in love with a girl form Wardour near Tisbury in Wiltshire. After spending time in Europe he returned and married her. Ans so started the Dorset buttony - a love story to beat no other.

Because these two people fell in love and married and decided to set up home near Shaftesbury and start the Dorset Button industry the lives of thousands of people were to be affected for over 200 years. Even today there are buttony enthusiasts including myself.

I hope this blog will act as a forum to chart with other buttoners.