Courtney & Co is reviving the craft of button-making in the UK, with an emphasis on corozo, horn and casein in line with its ethos of only using natural and biodegradable materials.
Here we take a look at these three types of buttons:
Corozo
Corozo, also known as vegetable ivory, is derived from the nut of the tagua palm which grows in the equatorial rainforests of central America. Reputedly, the best comes from Ecuador – which is where Courtney & Co, get is natural material.
“It takes 15 years for a tagua tree to mature from the time it germinates in the rich soil and humid air to produce its first crop. If we had used the first crop of a new palm in making our maiden button range in 2016, the tree would have started its life in 2000, so 16 years to make a button from scratch. But once the tree reaches maturity, it continues to produce its valuable nuts for a century or more, so our sample, newly matured tree could be supplying corozo to make buttons for our great-great-grandchildren!” says Andrea Courtney.
Each year, a tagua palm tree produces 15 large, spiny balls called mococha, which each contain around 20 small compartments in which some six nuts can be found; that’s 1,800 nuts per year. As these vary in size, each tree yields sufficient nuts for thousands of buttons annually.
The mococha fall to earth naturally when they are ripe, so there is no human harvesting or cutting of any part of the tree.
“Unlike other countries, the economic and sustainability features of the tagua palm trees means that it diminishes any need to cut down the rainforests in Ecuador. “So, when customers buy corozo buttons they are indirectly helping to save the ancient rainforests,” adds Courtney.
Horn
The production of real horn buttons in the UK actually came about by accident. At the end of the 19th century, a consignment of cattle hooves bound for leading button maker James Grove & Sons Ltd also contained water buffalo horns so the company became the first in the world to use this natural material for fastenings.
Through the introduction of new processes, the beauty of natural horn was slowly unveiled. Each button was unique in appearance, adding to their collective visual appeal. Horn was quickly recognised as a luxury material, adopted by the world’s finest tailors and fashion houses.
Real horn (typically from either a water buffalo or an ox) is a valuable by-product of the farming industry, particularly in India; the cattle are raised by numerous small, subsistence farmers and the money they receive for their horn is often a necessary additional source of income.
Horn is made from keratin – the same substance as human hair and nails. It is a type of fibrous protein, fully biodegradable. For buttons, the horns are separated from the solid bones they envelop. The solid tips are removed (and often used as toggles); the hollow parts are pressed flat from which blanks of various diameters are extracted. This type of horn is known as “plate” horn.
Given the structure of the grain which runs along the length of the horn, the appearance of the blanks and finished buttons varies markedly according to its type. As a natural material, each horn button is unique. However, buttons are sorted and divided into types to minimise variations, but differences within and between batches are considered quite normal.
Casein/ Codelite®
Casein is the protein element naturally occurring in milk; cured and hardened in sheets, or rods, it became a staple product for button-making in the UK from around 1910 to the 1960s, when the UK’s last milk casein-making plant in Gloucester was closed.
While production of casein buttons continued in the UK until the early 1970s, they were replaced by the present-day and near-ubiquitous use of polyester in the button-making industry. But now more than half a century later, Courtney & Co has not only re-introduced buttons made from Codelite®, today’s state-of-the-art version of milk casein, but has expanded the range to include solid, pearlescent (an alternative to mother-of-pearl) and cornu (an alternative to real horn) buttons.
To make Codelite®, rennet (a naturally occurring enzyme) is first introduced to the milk which separates the solids (curds) from the liquid (whey) in much the same way as cheese is made. Edible acids are added to accelerate the process. With the addition of formalin, the substance turns into a solid material at a rate of about 1mm in thickness per week.
It takes 33kg of milk to make 1kg of Codelite®. The whey – what is left over – is then sold as a commercially valuable commodity with many diverse uses, meaning that nothing goes to waste.
Codelite® buttons can be dyed and polished and perform like the conventional polyester buttons which replaced them – robust and hard-wearing and washable even in conventional machines but are also bio-degradable, sustainable and traceable.
