Everyone knows freshwater mussels for their pearls, but did you know they used to be the backbone of the fashion industry?
Before plastic took over, most buttons were crafted from mussel shells! The beautiful nacre (the iridescent inside of the shell) can vary from classic pearl white, to light pink or purple.
Mussels were once harvested by the boatload and shipped to factories across Arkansas until plastic buttons became the standard in the 1940s and ’50s…a forgotten era when we wore a little bit of nature right on our sleeves…