Every time I buy a shirt, it comes with a spare button or two, usually attached to that annoying label that is stitched on the inside and irritates your skin whenever it touches it. I usually cut the labels out along with the buttons and put them in a drawer for safe keeping, the buttons that is.
You never know when you might need that button, except I do… Never.
When was the last time that a button has come off one of your shirts and you have looked for the spare to sew it back on? Once, perhaps twice in the six decades that I have been on this planet yet the tradition carries on.
It’s a bit like the vents in your jacket, for when you sit on your horse, or that little pocket to the right of your flies that nobody knows what it is for.
It’s a complete waste and I am surprised that nobody has ever questioned why we carry on. Think of all the unnecessary cost and waste that goes into putting them there. Spare buttons are the appendix of a shirt, you can cut them out and nobody will be the wiser. Life will carry on perfectly well without them.
Here is a plan. As an alternative, the store that sells the shirt or other clothing item keeps a supply of spare buttons. In the unlikely event that one falls off and you feel sufficiently motivated to stitch it back on, then you either go to the store or go online to get a replacement. They might even give you it for free or stick it in the post.
This will never work I hear you say, yet this is exactly the system we use for many other things we use. Our cars don’t come with spare parts stitched on. When something fails or falls off we go back to the dealership and order the part.
There must be boxes and tins full of unused buttons up and down the country. Please make it stop. There has to be a better way.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 