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There are no bad buttons,
there are only bad people.

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How does that sound? OK?

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[Small thing.]

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[Big idea.]

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[Isaac Mizrahi on
the Button]

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No one knows who invented the button.

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It might have shown up
as early as 2000 BCE.

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It was decorative when it first started,

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just something pretty
sewn onto your clothes.

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Then about 3,000 years later,

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someone finally invented the buttonhole,

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and buttons were suddenly useful.

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The button and the buttonhole
is such a great invention.

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Not only does it slip
through the buttonhole,

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but then it kind of falls into place,

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and so you're completely secure,
like it's never going to open.

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The design of a button hasn't changed much
since the Middle Ages.

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It's one of the most enduring
designs in history.

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For me, the best buttons
are usually round.

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There's either a dome button
with a little shank,

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or there's just this sort of round thing
with either a rim or not a rim,

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either two holes or four holes.

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Almost more important than the button
is the buttonhole.

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And the way you figure that out is:

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the diameter of the button
plus the width of the button,

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plus a little bit of ease.

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Before buttons, clothes were bigger --

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they were more kind of amorphous,

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and people, like, wriggled into them

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or just kind of wrapped
themselves in things.

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But then fashion moved closer to the body

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as we discovered uses for the button.

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At one time, it was the one way
to make clothes fit against the body.

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I think the reason buttons have endured
for so long, historically,

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is because they actually work
to keep our clothes shut.

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Zippers break;

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Velcro makes a lot of noise,
and it wears out after a while.

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If a button falls off,
you just literally sew that thing on.

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A button is kind of there
for the long run.

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It's not just the most
elemental design ever,

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it's also such a crazy fashion statement.

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When I was a kid, my mom knit me
this beautiful sweater.

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I didn't like it.

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And then I found these buttons,

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and the minute the buttons were
on the sweater, I loved it.

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If you don't have good taste
and you can't pick out a button,

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then let someone else do it, you know?

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I mean that.