Before zippers, Velcro, and stretchy fabrics took over everyday wear, buttons ruled — including on stiff leather boots and tight gloves.
A button hook is a slender shaft with a small metal hook at one end and a handle at the other. You pass the hook through the buttonhole, catch the button, and draw it through. What would take sore fingers a long minute becomes a quick, almost elegant motion.
Shoe shops loved them as advertising giveaways. The example in our photo is stamped “ZIEFLE & NISSLE. FINE SHOES. ANN ARBOR.” — a free promo tool customers carried home and kept for years in sewing baskets and shoe boxes.
Handles could be plain steel or fancy bone, silver, celluloid, or enamel. The working end stayed simple: a hook sized for shoe or glove buttons.
As boots shifted toward laces, zippers, and elastic gussets in the 20th century, button hooks lost their daily job. Thousands survive as “mystery metal sticks” in inherited junk drawers.
Fun fact: Collectors often care more about the handle than the hook — Victorian and Edwardian makers turned a utilitarian tool into miniature decorative art.
Some button hooks were sold specifically for gloves, others for boots; the hook diameter and shaft length give collectors clues. Either way, the tool is a tiny reminder that getting dressed used to be a more mechanical problem.
Got a mystery from a shoe box or sewing kit? Tell us what you want identified next.
Sources
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Button_hook_from_Ziefle_%26_Nissle,_Fine_Shoes,_Ann_Arbor,_Michigan..jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttonhook
Image credit: CC BY 2.0 (Wystan). Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Button_hook_from_Ziefle_%26_Nissle,_Fine_Shoes,_Ann_Arbor,_Michigan..jpg
