Behind the Seams Episode 2: The Button Suit
How many buttons could it possibly take?
This was our first thought when John Rothrock, CEO of Yale Cleaners, the largest dry cleaning chain in the state, approached us about a very unique idea: covering an entire suit in buttons!
Our first estimate barely skimmed 3,000, surely that would be enough.
After the first weekend spent pain staking sewing each individual button on we found 3,000 covered roughly half…of the jacket only. With the entire rest of the jacket, pants and suspenders to go, we knew we’d need to get a lot more creative sourcing these buttons to make this idea come to life!
The further we got into the process the more we realized that the weight of the buttons would make it increasingly harder to attach them uniformly covering the suit. That’s when the dissection began.
We first removed the sleeves from the jacket and opened the underarm seams to give us two nice flat pieces to cover. With the success of the sleeves we replicated the process with the pants, cutting them right off into shorts and opening the inseam to create the perfect flat surface for sewing. With six unique parts we were really able to divide and conquer, each claiming a piece to complete.
After a cumulative 164 hours of button sewing and a 7 person team sewing buttons working around the clock we were able to make this button sewing dream a reality!
Join us Behind the Seams for every exciting button sewing moment in our premier below of: The Button Suit!
