Buttons of Galalith

Recently I was translating the description of one of my lovely vintage 'draft at home' patterns when I cam across a very unfamiliar word.
 Galalithe. The pattern called for the revers and cuffs of the dress to be trimmed with "Boutons en galalithe".
Huh?

 It wasn't in my 30 lb. French dictionary so I googled at and low and behold, what did I find?
Buttons galore!

http://www.schoenlaub-galalith.com/fr/galalithe.htm

Galalith buttons from an online collection: http://boutonsweb.fr/collectionboutons/Galalithe.html

Galalith was created in 1889 when French chemist J.C. Trillat discovered the means to make casein (found in milk) insoluble by immersing it in formaldehyde. It was named Galithe (in the French)  from the Greek words for milk and stone.

It was very inexpensive to produce and soon became very popular in the fashion industry. It was produced into buttons, combs, buckles and fake jewels. It reached it's height of popularity in the 1930's and was even used to manufacture decorative handles for umbrellas.

 With the end of World War 2 came better and less expensive plastic production techniques and Galalith was relegated to the past along with its sister compounds Bakelite and Celluloid.

For those button collectors out there, according to an Ebay guide, it is said that Galalith (or French Bakelite) has a "wet wool" smell when it is run under hot water.

For those of you who want to know about the dress (I always ask, "But what about the dress?" ) the pattern is now available for download and looks like this!

Mrs. Depew Vintage

Ooh la la!

Loot from Norway

So long, long ago I blogged about hunting down my first Norwegian antique show. And then I didn't say another thing about it. Frankly, I forgot. I'm funny that way. But I did take pictures, which I just stumbled upon. So I thought, better late than never, n'est pas?
The show was small. Really small. I grew up at antique shows, tucked under a display table for a whole weekend with an engrossing book, or playing dress up for my mother's customer's entertainment. This was in Denver and the shows were always on a massive scale. This show was advertised to be the largest gathering of antique dealers in all of Norway, Sweden and Denmark combined.
Sadly, that wasn't much. The building with about 25 booths was about the size of your local small bowling alley.
Regardless, I still found some cute things whilst my husband carefully examined old German pistols and training grenades. I was hunting for patterns.
I didn't find any.
But what I did find was pretty great.

I got some lovely cards of little rhinestone buttons. There are tons of them for those lovely dresses that call for 16 or more buttons.

I especially love the gold double rosebud buttons. Oh, the things I can do with these.

I also acquired a great "Parisian" hairstyles booklet for salons in Norway from June of 1949, with advertisements in Norwegian and French which I find an odd blend, sort of like my life.