• How long have you been working at Duttons for Buttons?

I started working in 2013, during the Tour de France time, so 3 years now.

• Is everyday different? Is there a new surprise, new people visiting?

During the week it’s mainly the regulars so people coming in who do their crafts looking for buttons, ribbon and repairing items. On Saturdays we get more tourists so it’s more varied; selling sewing boxes, bags and kits. But, I was just saying to one of the customers the other day, some days you sell nothing but Velcro and you think, “What’s everybody been up to?” It sort of goes in a pattern, a cycle, whether there’s something that sparks it off or it’s to do with the weather…!

• Do you know how many buttons there are in the shop?

Ooh… Goodness me, over 12,000!

• How many years has Duttons for Buttons been open?

60 years. The same family still owns the shops. Mrs White, the lady who was the owner and who came in a lot, she died earlier this year – but she was very active, very hands-on. It was her dad who set up the shop and now the three of the shops belong to her daughter. She lives in London, I don’t see her a lot but she pops up from time to time. So it is the same family that started it.

• How did you come to work here?

My partner and I moved to Ilkley from the Cotswolds and I’d not worked since I had the kids. I was walking past one day and was looking for something for a little extra pocket money and found there was one 4 hours shift available. It’s increased bit by bit ever since people have left over the years. It was just to get doing something and get out of the house and meet new people, and it’s such a lovely little shop to work in. Surrounded by lots of nice things. And I’ve learnt so much as well from the customers – which is useful either when selling things or using for myself.

• Do you have any favourite buttons you tend to go towards?

I like the black and white checked and patterned ones as they are classic and minimalist and match most anything. I’m also drawn to the sparkly ones, of course! I like a bit of sparkle!

• Do you usually get button collectors coming into the store?

We do get button collectors in! A lot of people have been sparked by it… if they’ve been inherited their nana’s button tin or something and that started it off. Children like to collect them as well, which is lovely. And we also get the odd person in who has a panic attack and has button phobia that is surprisingly common!

• Oh my! I have come across it during my research actually… why do you think they come in?

I don’t know actually as they can see in the window we have the bags with the buttons on it and I always think, to them, it should act like garlic to a vampire and stop them coming in but sometimes they don’t realise until they are here that the button room at the back is there and they start to shudder when they see it. Quite strange, especially with the name of the shop!

• Exactly! Do you use a lot of buttons yourself? Are you a crafter or collector?

I do like my crafts. I mainly do crochet and use a lot of buttons in my work – some which I crochet or embroider myself, some from my own collection and some that I buy from the shop. I use some of the button bags from here to keep my collection in a safe place but I also like to buy the plain tote bags and sew my own buttons on as well… it’s very therapeutic! I used to be very lazy with home repairing but have become much better since I worked here. I didn’t realise how easy it was to actually fix your own stuff. I realise things are less disposable and we should hold onto things more!

• That’s good! There’s a sustainability aspect that has impacted you then. Recycling, up-cycling, repairing…

Absolutely! We get a lot a lot of people in who buy clothes from charity shops

and just come in to change the buttons - it changes the whole look then. A coat or a cardigan can be reused to suit someone else because of the personality of the buttons. It’s all in the details!

• Who is the strangest customer you have ever encountered?

Oooh! *laughs*

• …You’ve had a few characters then?

Yes! Just by the nature of the shop! There was a lovely lady who had designed a cross-stitch pattern – a picture of her dog – and she brought her Collie to the shop. She wanted to choose all of her own threads, so we had the dog lay on the floor in the button room and we were matching the threads against all of the different shades of the dog’s fur! We’ve had people come in, who are Punch and Judy collectors, who want to repair bits of the original puppets with thread, buttons, ribbon, you name it. We’ve had some interesting people who were tailors during the War and they have really nice stories to share of when they were designing stuff. They bring their vintage pieces in to find new buttons and thread to repair them and keep them for their families. Just the nature of the customers, because they are crafty, they are often eccentric!

• Do you find people keep a lot of buttons from family members who have passed away?

Yes, absolutely. A lot of people share their stories with me.

• Why do you think they keep those?

I don’t know… I think they must just be really sentimental. A lot of people come in and they go in the button room and their face lights up and it takes them back to tales of when they used to play with their mum’s buttons, or their grandma’s buttons, and use them as counting coins to play shop and doing all kinds of things with them. And there’s just something really, really nostalgic about them for people. I think that’s why people collect them and then once they get given a tin they continue on. Some people have come in buying the jute bags because they’ve wanted to sew buttons on that belonged to someone in their family or made other things out of them. There was a lovely elderly couple who came in and they were making, for their grandchildren, teddies out of patchworks made from their own clothes and buttons that their kids have grown seeing them in. They wanted to create these bears for Christmas to hand down and keep in the family, as a keepsake. It is a really lovely idea.

• Do you find it very therapeutic being among lots of buttons?

Yes, it is. There’s something very peaceful, inviting even, about the button room. I just want to be in there all day! It’s very nice working here and I often find myself wondering what I could use the buttons for even though I don’t need any more!

• Do you like they the buttons are so organised?

Yes, it is so satisfying seeing them all in colour groups! We spend ages shuffling them around and trying to match all the shades. We like to mix them around every so often. It’s very effective and makes them easier to find when someone has a request. We have no code system for the buttons so, when phoning between the three shops, we’re all fairly used to describing them! So we can always find them by size, shape or colour. They’ll go, “Oh, it’s about half an inch thick and it’s got this kind of rim,” and then you can narrow it down in the button room and you know where they are. I spend that long staring at them, I know roughly where they all live!

• Do you think the organisational / sorting aspect is what draws people to buttons?

Yeah, I think so. People like the tactile feeling of them, they like to sort them, like to organise them into groups. You can have something that’s fairly plain and customise it and add a bit of bling to it. You can make it retro to look like some of the older buttons. We have a collection of 1930’s originals here… We stock glass ones, wooden ones, brass ones…

• Wow! These are genuine 1930’s buttons? Are they part of the shop’s stock or are they from clothes?

I’ll be honest with you - I have no idea! They seem to keep appearing. The button fairies must bring them. *laughs*

• Do you swap buttons between shops?

Yes, each shop has a few different ones but we generally have the same sort of stock and we swap over boxes every so often to keep variation. Upstairs there are lots of bigger boxes of buttons that will either get sorted down here and displayed or sent to another of the shops and we rotate.