Babies’ and Children’s buttons | Australian Button History

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One upon a time, the buttons used on infants and children’s clothing were the same as for adults; perhaps ‘daintier’. When realistic buttons became all the rage from around 1937, they were actually fashion for adults, although they soon appeared on children’s clothing. In Australian newspapers, buttons described as ‘for children’ were first advertised in 1944.

In the 1950s several Australian manufacturers produced lines of children’s and babies’ buttons. Beauclaire had ‘Tiny Tots’, Woolworths had ‘Kiddietone’, Beutron had a series of 6 collectable cards, and also marketed babies’ buttons in their ‘Tecpearl’ range. Rex C. Norris had ‘Jack and Jill’ buttons.

Beutrons children’s range

Thanks so much to Marian Clark (a.k.a ‘the Crazyhaberdasher’ ) She has kindly shared photographs from her own collection of Beutrons children’s range:

Detail from a 1957 advert. A Beutron Merry-go-round!

The button cards were designed to be collectable; you could send away for a booklet.

Pat’s collection

Beutron Baby Buttons

Some card have the cotton at the top, some at the bottom of the card. Some have red/blue borders, some pink/blue. The two cards at the bottom right are MOP. The rest are plastic.

Beauclaire Tiny Tots

These were only advertised in 1954.

The dirty card is an original. The partial larger card shows these childrens’ buttons were sold before the ‘Tiny Tot’ marketing campaign.

Note: these are reproduction cards used to display a range of colours available in each design. They were not sold that way.

The Tiny Tot range was also sold on standard Beauclaire cards.

Kiddietone

This was a Woolworths branding.

Although these are labeled as ‘Kiddietone’ this rabbit design can be clearly seen in the 31st May 1954 ‘Woman’s Day and Home’ magazine ad for Beauclaire ‘Tiny Tots’ buttons (see advertising page).