Gradually though, velcro loses its potency just as buttons pop off, zippers get caught and bows refuse to stay knotted. Clothing manufacturers have toiled to jazz up their items with appealing buttons or fabric-covered fasteners. I've never known exactly where to keep the spare buttons designers attach to the item in a small paper envelope. If the buttons are actually sewn to the shirt, I leave them stationary just as if they were part of the outer world. Button Soup is a book I read in my youth and acted out with my family's lost or unclaimed buttons.
Buttons form histories of their own.
That's an idea - create a family tree of buttons, each from that relation's favorite shirt. There are concealment techniques such as the flap of material overlying a vertical row of clear buttons. We all know that shirt's not exposing skin by more than sheer luck. Just as feasible is a shirt equipped with the metal slide and hook device. Perhaps the first self-adhesive shirt will be construeed.