Buttons have a distinctly utilitarian connotation. They are used to close unseemly openings and for closure. not the kind of closure that one needs when moving on from a 'what was I thinking' affair of the heart, or an ill conceived get rich quick plan. But closure that ensures our modesty will not be in question: an unsung, ordinary place in apparel. It might even be said that they are an afterthought.
Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Mark Twain

There are those who understand the importance of the humble button.I refer to several  members of my fashionable family, nay, not only fashionable, but arbiters of fashion, artisans who could glance at a ready to wear catalog and recreate the dresses on the page. in a snap. and then add the buttons. You have to be born with it, the ability to know the right button. It is a lost art.

Of course there are many ways we can reuse something. We can dye it. We can cut it. We can change the buttons. 

Issey Miyake

I can hear my mother, my aunts, my grandmother and great grandmother say,
"You can always change the buttons."
That was the way of saying that a garment was redeemable, had some nascent value. the addition of the correct button could reinstate said garment to wearable, and possibly even proud status.

Knitters know the importance of buttons. The resurgence of knitting as a cool pastime for celebs and  fashionistas alike, buttons are reclaiming their rightful place in the planning and construction of beautiful knitted objects. They are discussed and displayed on blogs. Artists are shown creating them in their studios, Etsy has dozens, if not hundreds of sites devoted to buttons.

I say, if you believe what you read in the comic strips, then you believe that mice run around with little gold buttons on their red pants and drive cars.
Mort Walker

And then there are the vintage buttons and their collectors and recreaters. It is these that you see here. I will add them as an artistic stroke to the neck warmers I have made for gifts, (maybe even keep one for myself.) They are not afterthoughts, but punctuation. And closure, not simply to close the gap, but to announce the completion of a project and the invitation to go on to the next thing.

America: It's like Britain, only with buttons.
Ringo Starr