The garments and portraits on this linkspage provide examples of silk thread-wrapped buttons, including death’s head buttons and striped buttons. See the links in the Additional Resources inset for instructions that will help you make your own buttons, as well as places where you can buy your own button molds to make your own buttons.

A letter published in The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1807 muses on 18th century buttons:

There were two ſorts of buttons known to the taylors, death’s head and baſkets; the former were covered with flos ſilk, diverging in quarters from the centre, like the ruſhes at the bottom of a chair; the latter were woven ſomething like baſket-work, and were not confined to black, but were indifferently of any colour to ſuit the cloth.

Silk twist buttons like these were made in Leek and Macclesfield in the 18th century. (Macclesfield was particularly known for its buttons in the 18th century, as noted in A description of the country from thirty to forty miles round Manchester, A concise history of the county and city of Chester, and even The young English scholar’s complete pocket companion. A history of Macclesfield has a particularly interesting description of the button-making trade and how it boosted the local economy.) The local trade continued in the area into the late 19th century.

A general description of all trades describes three trades involved with this process: the button-mould-makers (“The Mould of a Button is the Inſide, or the hidden Part, on which the Silk, Twiſt, Metal, &c. is wrought, and is the main Support of it. They are cut out of Wood and Horn, by a particular Hand-inſtrument, at once ſhaping them to any Size required, which differ as often as the Modles of Buttons”), the button-makers (“who cover the Moulds with divers ſorts of Twiſts, &c. in many curious Mixtures and Shapes, on which many Women work”), and the button-sellers (“These are Shop-keepers, who ſell all ſorts of Buttons, and what generally goes with them, viz. Twiſts for making the Button-holes, &c.”) See also The complete dictionary of arts and sciences for more on the making of buttons and button-molds.

In the 18th century, the “ſilk twiſt button, called death head” was also exported to America in addition to its spread in England and on the Continent. They are listed in newspaper advertisements describing goods imported from England, including Rhea and Wikoff of Philadelphia (“ſilk and hair death head buttons,” The Pennsylvania Gazette, January 7, 1755), John & Thomas Worthington of Baltimore (“Mohair & Horſe-hair Buttons, Mohair & Silk Twiſt, fine Scarlet, Death-head Buttons,” Maryland Gazette, August 19, 1762), Walter Mansell of Charleston (“gold and ſilver baſket and death-head buttons,” The South-Carolina Gazette, March 16, 1765), Hudson & Thompson of Baltimore (“Baſket and Death-head Buttons … Silver and Gold Twiſt Buttons,” July 6, 1769), Samuel Howell and Son of Philadelphia (“basket and death head buttons,” The Pennsylvania Journal, September 19, 1771), Oliver Cromwell of Charleston (“large Death Head-Buttons of all Colours,” The South-Carolina Gazette, December 13, 1773), David Lamb of Charleston (“Metal and death-head buttons,” The Royal South-Carolina Gazette, May 9, 1782), and Isaac Hazlehurst of Philadelphia (“metal and death head buttons,” Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, September 21, 1784). “WILLIAM SMITH, a Scotchman, who is about 23 years of age,” who ran away from Newcastle, Virginia, in 1774, took “a Newmarket coat of light bath coating, not bound, but ſtitched on the edges, with death head buttons on it” (Virginia Gazette, January 26, 1775).