Pushing Buttons - July 2026

I found Courtney & Co. on the recommendations of my business associates Dr. Google and Claude (pronounced the French way.) When I started on this journey of building a button empire from my dining room table, I had literally no idea how one finds and buys from manufacturers. My chest ached a bit about minimum order sizes, import taxes, all the things I didn’t know, sounding like an idiot.  I emailed a bunch of info email addresses in late December and early January, expecting to be ignored. I largely was.

But Andrea wrote me back the very next morning. A response from a real person. While most auto-responded with links to terrible catalogues that made no sense to me, she was warm and patient and exactly the kind of person I wanted to work with. (Also, obviously a human.)

I loved her story. A decade ago, Courtney & Co. rescued the machinery and heritage patterns of James Grove & Sons – the last large-scale horn button maker in Britain, which had closed in 2012 after 155 years. She started with corozo buttons in 2016, added milk-casein buttons two years later, and then launched horn buttons. A decade of rebuilding something the industry had let die. She cared about craftsmanship and sustainability.  

I asked such tellingly basic questions that I’m sure she knew I was not going to make her rich. Do I have to pay VAT as a Canadian? If I have to pick one white shirt button, how do I choose? How much is shipping? Her core customers are ateliers and tailoring houses. Me? A rando with a nascent Shopify store that hadn’t launched.

She treated me with such respect, and soon I got one of my first button shipments. Corozo. Horn. Milk casein. Sustainable buttons for classic items to last a lifetime.

As I googled Andrea more, I saw posts about her hustling at trade shows to revive a business that had been given up for dead. A woman who made a much bigger bet than me.

I love the buttons I got from her. I also loved how she supported my first steps.

If you made it this far in my first monthly newsletter, I'm thrilled. Thank you. Stay subscribed to follow my journey, get button tips, and see my favourite buttons. If you want to help, share this with someone else.