L. Nichols Buttons

Lionel Nichols (1909 in London - 1993), was an English glass button maker. From the mid-1940s to mid-1960s, his handmade products were commissioned for the British haute couture industry, and eventually for costume jewellery.
Born in London 1909, before the Second World War Nichols was a commercial button importer. After the war, Nichols set up a workshop in Marylebone, hand making buttons from glass in a way which Nichols himself invented. He had no industrial experience and so all his work was experimental. He would cut raw sheets of vitrolite glass into squares and melted it in the furnace. Then began a process of the glass going in and out of the furnace as he worked, painted and shaped each piece.
From the mid-1940s, he was frequently commissioned by couture houses to make buttons for specific pieces, for customers including: Norman Hartnell, Hardy Amies, John Cavanagh, Matita, Mattli and Ronald Paterson. As high fashion became less about buttons, from the late 1960s onwards he went on to make costume jewellery for hippy boutiques on the and Carnaby Street.
Nichols' work has resurfaced as his daughter Dixie has begun to sell his remaining stock on the Internet.
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