For good service, press Button Button.
The store that, for 18 years, has paid the bills by selling nothing but buttons, credits our readers with being the first to formally acknowledge it for what it is Gastowns hidden gem.
In fact, despite having second-generation customers and customers who come for help with all their special occasions (from newborn babies to wedding decor), and being written up in Vogue Australia, Japanese tour guides and twice in the New York Times, this is the first time the novelty shop has actually won anything.
But the people who come back again and again arent button obsessed, and neither is owner Colleen Miller. They are looking for an elegant solution to their knitted scarves, craft projects, ceremonial creations, suit jackets or hand-me-downs.
Ive had kids come in when theyre five, and now theyre finished college. I have one family that buys a button every year to sew on their stocking; theyre still coming in after 18 years. One young woman who used to play in the soup here, she stops to gesture at an overflowing bucket of buttons, liked it so much that when she got married 10 years later, she had a button wedding button bouquets and boutonnieres. And now she has an etsy shop that does stuff with buttons.
Miller is Vancouvers resource on all things buttons, and one thing shes learned in those 18 years is that, at one point or another, everyone needs one.
I think if I sold the shop I would really miss the variety of people. If you never buy hats, you dont go to a hat store. But even if you dont like buttons, sooner or later youll lose a button and have to come in, says the soft-spoken creative.
Twenty per cent of my customers are men. I think they come here because they dont know where to go.
When rents rose too high four years ago, Miller looked for a new location and struggled to find something small enough. She eventually struck gold when the city agreed to a change-of-use for a vacant office space at 318 Homer. The shop is less than 400-sq-ft (roughly the size of a condo in Olympic Village) but it suits Miller just fine.
Its hard to find spots in the city that are small enough, even if you get the right price per square foot. I mean Im selling buttons, she laughs.
Despite the move, her shop feels as if, like perhaps your grandmas button box, it has always been there it brightens up a stretch of Homer, classified descriptively as dead, that needed some passion to draw people to its sidewalks.
A warm yellow glow infuses the space, glinting off the wood, shell, horn, resin and rhinestone surfaces of her treasures.
Within one square foot, she can take a miniature trip around the world: This little one is a woven basket button; this is a real feather under acrylic resin; this is a banana skin under resin. These two are cinnamon: one is a cinnamon stick that has been sliced, the other is cinnamon bark and still smells of cinnamon. These are glass from West Africa that are made from Guinness beer bottles.
While the functional form of buttons dates back to the 9th century, their ornamental origins go back even further, to 2,800 years before Christ. Why are they treasured by so many cultures, customs and walks of life, though... Especially children?
I think its because its a tiny little talisman, something thats proportionate to them that they can have. They dont wear jewelry so the buttons they wear are important. If theyve got airplane buttons on their sweater, theyll call it their Airplane Sweater and want to wear it.
So whether youre looking for yourself, for someone special, or for something special, somewhere among the nine thousand textures and materials is the one you are looking for. And, if you ask Miller for help, shes sure to be right on the button.
Click here to see a full list of winners: http://www.wevancouver.com/news/247278851.html
