Some new buttons,  and a new mystery and then some laughs!  First the buttons:

Beauclaire, Beutron, Walkers.

Now the mystery:  Landico Pty Ltd.  Coburg, Melbourne.

From 1949-1954 this “manufacturer of high class buttons” advertised for staff.  They also sought salesmen in Gippsland,  Western Victoria,  Adelaide,  Sydney and in Tasmania for their products.  They registered designs for buttons (class 3) in 1955.  I can find nothing else about this company.

148-154 Sydney Road, Coburg. The Landico office would have been in the right half of the Aussie Home Loans site.  This strip is part of a hertiage precinct dating from the late 1880’s.

Now for the laugh.  From ‘The New Idea for Women’ 4th July 1956:

They also recommended taping your bra straps to stop them slipping, and taping fresh flowers to your ear lobes. Charming!

What to do with an unexpected party invitation when you can’t afford something new?  How about lampshade tassels to make glamorous earrings and matching necklace!

One of my favourite button activities is to investigate  a new (to me) manufacturer.  I’ve just received six NZ Railways buttons. Three were from England, one from A.Levy, and the last from the Wellington Woollen Manufacturing Company, Limited.

This company was incorporated in 1882 and commenced manufacturing in 1886.  The head office,  warehouse and clothing factory were situated in a three/four story brick building in Petone,  near Wellington.  The mills were also in Petone.

Published 30th November 1885 in The Manawatu Standard

The head Office,  corner of Willeston and Victoria Streets, Petone.

Looms in the mill.

This Warehouse in Christchurch was opened around 1918.  Photo from the 1920’s.

Here are the latest acquisitions:

A couple of days ago a unusual container of buttons were left on the front porch;  a Tupperware bowl taped up and with the postage pasted on the lid containing over a kilo of buttons.  No envelope,  box or other packaging.  Here’s what I picked out from the stash.

Beauclaire and Beutron buttons,  a Beutron buckle and some Paua shell.

Continuing on in my series on teenagers in Australian media: The 1960’s

Women’s Weekly 20th April 1960.  “Dianne,  in her search for a book,  wears slim palatine slacks and a side buttoning jerkin.  Carol Anne in a buttoned car coat of palatine trimmed with matching corded velvet collar and cuffs. Rosemary’s jacket,  cut straight from a wide yoke,  tops a slim skirt with a deep slit backed by an extra panel in the back.

4th October 1961.  A lively young dress named  ‘Rosanne’.

And for the boys;

Casual shirt of mediallion-printed gold cotton with a continental collar with matching bermudas.

Slim-line sports coat with cut-away jacket, narrow lapels and Stiletto trousers of terylene-and-wool. Narrow-brim, brown straw hat tops off the outfit. And don’t forget to encourage the young to smoke because it’s cool.

19th September 1962.  This is so bad it’s good!  What a lovely teenage couple.

19th September 1962.  So Jacqueline Kennedy.

Thanks to my Tassie suppliers;  enjoy the new buttons.

The buttons on the right are glass.

Here’s the new boil-tested whites lined up with more to show the different sizes.

From May 1954 The Australian Women’s Weekly had a new monthly supplement, ‘For Teenagers’. There were articles about fashion, beauty, debs, sport, exercise, grooming, careers, advice, music, etc.   I suspect the models used were not teenagers!

19th May 1954: the first supplement.

Green buttons on a pink jacket,  how bold!  16th March 1955.

A frock in red Corduroy called ‘Arline”. 20th June 1956

How gorgeous.  This one’s called ‘Bettina’. 3rd October 1956. Love the red gloves.

The lacquered hair, the prim collar, the paired buttons. Lovely. 21st November 1956

A little like Audrey Hepburn. 22 May 1957.

Thanks so much Robyn G. for my lovely new Beutron,  Disney and Darian buttons!

Robyn supplied me with 3 different shades (brown, moron and yellow) of this Moonglow design that I’ve mounted on one card.  Love the gorgeous baby card!

Bambi,  Goofy and Chip buttons.  A large (approx 1 inch diametre) Darian button.

The brown buttons on the right are a 4-hole version of the Coronet design with 2 large holes.  They are probably a later version.

It is with some amusement I’ve been researching how teens have been marketed to and written about in the local press over the years.  From about 1928 til 1960 they were referred to as teeners. ( Teeners? Really? ) 

The Sun (Sydney) 25th January 1920.

The Sun (Sydney) 12th February 1922. The rule is  ‘frocks of the teen-age girl should be as simple as possible’.

The Gundagai Independent. 7th June 1928. Jumper suits are always a favourite among the ‘teeners.

The term teenager was also used from around 1922 onwards,  although often spelt teen-ager until  after the 1940-50’s.   At first all they did was attend dances and dinners wearing nice frocks.  Sometimes they went to parties.  It was all very jolly.  It seemed that due to American influence,  they needed their own fashions.   Although I can’t see the difference myself,  apparently the below styles “show a nice balance between junior and adult styles”.  Hmmm.  Slacks?  Suits?  Rayon?

The Sydney Morning Herald 8th April 1947.  A casual out-door outfit of rolled up slacks and checked shirt. ‘Marvelous’ woollen pinafores. Scallops and tucking give distinction to a youth frock of rayon (yuck).  Heart shaped pockets on an olive green suit.

Beige rayon. My daughter would not have been impressed.

The Recorder (Port Pirie) 4th January 1950

The West Australian 31st March 1950.

There was trouble brewing,  though.  In 1951 in the USA a judge charged 3 teen-aged girls with drunkenness,  and ordered them to stop wearing dungarees under pain of imprisonment.  He warned them against the habit of dressing like men.  Scandalous!  In 1954 the West Australian newspaper made a plea  for parents not to offer alcohol or cigarettes at a teen-age party, even though the damage done,  if any,  would in most cases be slight.  Good idea.

The Central Queensland Herald (Rockhampton) 1st Jan 1953.  Gloves are still necessary in the height of Queensland summer.

Just a couple of buttons to share today.  First,  some kookaburras cut from sheets of casein in the ?1930’s-1940’s.

And now a couple of uniform buttons.

A ‘Commonwealth Railway’s and a City of Melbourne button.

Commonwealth Railways was responsible for train services in the Northern territory, South Australia and Western Australia and New South Wales from 1917 to 1971 when it was absorbed into Australian National Railways.  It included such famous trains such as the Trans-Australian,  The Ghan and the Indian Pacific.  You can read more in the Wikipedia entry on Commonwealth Railways,  from which these photos came.

Below is a photo of a framed poster we have (my hubby’s a train buff).

I also expanded my Leda collection at Buttonfest.  If you look over these examples,  as well as those on the Leda page,  you’ll notice that whist there were some stronger and brighter colours,  there was is a preponderance of  muted/pastel/gelati shades of pink, green, yellow, cream, orange and brown.

Here’s a few new finds.

The blue are Beauclaires.

A couple of vegetable ivory CMF buttons,  and a plastic AJ Parkes scout button.