PARIS — Her fingers ran over the smooth red buttons with flecks of gold and the wavy sea-green buttons and the black buttons with ridges that made them look like miniature fans. Yoshini Kondo admired ...

When Leo Hendrik Baekeland invented Bakelite in 1907, he changed the world — ushering in the Age of Plastics and transforming the way people lived. The phenolic resin took off first as a superior, ...

PARIS — Her fingers ran over the smooth red buttons with flecks of gold and the wavy sea-green buttons and the black buttons with ridges that made them look like miniature fans. Yoshini Kondo admired ...

For two decades, Faye Moattar has housed her vast stock, from huge mother-of-pearl buttons to exquisite vintage French passementerie buttons, in a store arranged like a back stockroom, with boxes upon ...

Baekeland was hardly alone in his quest for a better varnish. The shellac issue was one of the hot topics of chemical research at the turn of the century. The sole source of shellac was the excretions ...