Silk-Wrapped Buttons in the 18th Century

Last updated: Sep 29, 2025

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 at right for instructions to 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).

Death’s Head Buttons (in solid colors)

• National Trust 1402355, a man’s sleeved waistcoat or jacket, c. 1730-1740
• Manchester 1959.51, a man’s coat, 1730-1750
• Chicago History Museum 2380-14H, an embroidered silk coat that Jabez Hamlin wore at his wedding in 1736
• National Trust 1402230, a man’s country coat, 1740
• Met 1982.275a, b, an Italian silk cassock, c. 1740
• John Bright Collection riding jacket, 1740s
• Meg Andrews 8232, a Dutch boy’s coat
• Johann Ludwig Aberli by Jakob Emanuel Handmann, 1751
• Captain John Pigott by Joseph B. Blackburn, 1752
• V&A T.197-1984, a woman’s riding coat, 1750-1759
• National Trust 1349006, a man’s waistcoat (with two of its original death’s head buttons), 1750-1760
• Manchester 1960.301, a man’s banyan, 1750-1760
• LACMA M.2007.211.797, a man’s banyan, 1750-1760
• Met 2008.75, a man’s banyan, c. 1760
• Theodore Atkinson, Jr. by John Singleton Copley, c. 1757-1758
• An unknown man in a landscape by George Romney, c. 1758-1760
• Thaddeus Burr by John Singleton Copley, c. 1758-1760
• V&A T.198-1984, a woman’s riding habit coat, c. 1760
• Samuel Richardson by Mason Chamberlin the Elder, c. 1760
• Meg Andrews 7998, waistcoat embroidered in Suzhou, China for the export market, assembled in Britain, 1760s
• Timothy Fitch by Joseph Blackburn, c. 1760-1775
• Thomas Wentworth by Joseph Blackburn, 1761
• James Warren by John Singleton Copley, 1761-1763
• Probably John Trevor, third Baron Trevor by Arthur Devis, 1763
• Peter Perez Burdett and his First Wife Hannah by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1765
• Met 1991.46, a man’s coat, c. 1765
• A man of the Jones family, 1765-1770
• Portrait of a man known as the Indian Captain by Joseph Wright of Derby, c. 1767
• National Trust 1349034, a man’s sleeved waistcoat, 1770-1780
• John Philip de Haas by Charles Willson Peale, 1772
• Francis Malbone and his Brother Saunders by Gilbert Stuart, c. 1773
• Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin (Sarah Morris) by John Singleton Copley, 1773
• Capability Brown by Nathaniel Dance (see also NPG 1490 and Burghley PIC211)
• Benjamin Waterhouse by Gilbert Stuart, 1775
• Met 1981.14.2, a woman’s riding waistcoat, c. 1775
• Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Izard by John Singleton Copley, 1775
• Thomas “Sense” Browne by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, 1775
• Louis de Visme by Anton Raphael Mengs
• NT 1349019, a man’s waistcoat, 1775-1785
• Peter Oliver by John Downman, 1776-1791
• Samuel Mifflin by Charles Willson Peale, 1777-1780
• Philip Livingston
• Sir Abraham Isaac Elton 4th Bt by Thomas Beach, c. 1780-1790
• National Trust 1349032, a man’s waistcoat, 1780-1790
• National Trust 1349033, a man’s waistcoat, 1780-1800
• Samples of Macclesfield buttons, late 18th century
• Oliver Wolcott by Ralph Earl, c. 1789
• David Baldwin by Ralph Earl, 1790
• Reuben Hull Booth by Ralph Earl, 1790
• Self-portrait of Archibald Skirving, c. 1790
• Juliane Gottliebe Elizabeth Becherer by Joseph Friedrich August Darbes
• Historic New England 2006.44.1293AB, a woman’s cloak, c. 1800
• Silk buttons made by Brocklehurst, 1800

Multicolored/Striped Thread-Wrapped Buttons

These striped buttons tend to appear more frequently later in the 18th century and coordinate with the color combination on the garment.

• Kerry Taylor Auctions Apr 8 2014, lot 140, a gentleman’s waistcoat, 1760-1770
• Manchester 1962.222, a man’s waistcoat, 1760-1780
• LACMA M.2007.211.718, a woman’s robe à la française, c. 1770
• London Museum 77.104, a printed cotton waistcoat with silver tambour work, c. 1771-1774
• Met 2005.61a, b, a silk dress (robe à la française) made in France c. 1775
• Charles A. Whitaker Lot 512, a man’s striped silk coat, 1775-1790
• National Trust 1349031, a man’s waistcoat, 1780-1790
• V&A T.92-1962, a man’s frock coat, 1785-1790
• Meg Andrews 9169, a Maze and Steer silk waistcoat from the family of Thomas Crewe Dod, England, late 1780s-early 1790s
• KCI AC5146 85-28-2AC, AC5667 87-35-1, a man’s suit, 1790s
• Missouri History Museum 1933-038-0001a-b, green and cream striped silk taffeta coat and waistcoat worn by Pierre Bauduy de Bellevue, 1790-1800
• Waistcoat, end of the 18th century