Tender Buttons is on view at Musée Ariana, Geneva
September 15, 2025 – October 4, 2026
From 19 September 2025 to 4 October 2026, Musée Ariana presents Tender Buttons in its freely accessible gallery. Echoing Gertrude Stein’s eponymous poetry collection, this exhibition is entirely dedicated to the button, exploring its many facets through design, fashion, art, literature, politics and social history.
Curated by Claire FitzGerald, Chief Curator of the museum, the exhibition brings together more than 300 ceramic and glass buttons, placed in dialogue with works from Musée Ariana spanning the 18th century to the present day. The project takes as its starting point the button production of ceramicist Lucie Rie, which has recently enriched a new field of study within the museum’s collections, thanks to a donation from collector Frank Nievergelt.
Buttons emerge here as vehicles of formal experimentation, but also as instruments of survival, identity and collaboration. The often-overlooked social histories of these everyday objects are highlighted through a scenography by Lucie de Martin, inspired by the architecture of 19th-century shopping arcades – a key period for the industrialisation of porcelain and glass buttons.
Developed in collaboration with the Swiss Fashion Museum (MuMode) in Yverdon-les-Bains, the exhibition also includes unique loans from prestigious institutions: the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris), Musée Carnavalet–Histoire de Paris, the Musée de la Vie romantique and private collections.
Through this journey, Tender Buttons pays tribute to an object that is both utilitarian and deeply symbolic, a mirror of fashion trends, techniques and identities.
Programme (selection):
• Thematic tours
• Origin of Materials and Craftsmanship: The Button as a Social Marker with Nathalie Ducatel, curator-restorer, Sunday, 8 February 2026 at 11am
Contact
ariana@ville-ge.ch
Musée Ariana – Swiss Museum for Ceramics and Glass
Avenue de la Paix 10
1202 Geneva
Switzerland
Photos by Boris Dunand, courtesy of Musée Ariana.
