What would jeans be without buttons?
A Wieland innovation prevents nickel allergies
Jeans buttons and rivets are often made from coated brass – and can cause nickel allergies. A nickel-free alloy from Wieland remedies this: the material does not need a coating and still looks good.
Who doesn't know them: the typical large, sturdy buttons and rivets that not only have an important practical function on jeans trousers and jackets, but also an unmistakable visual significance. Less well known is the fact that jeans buttons are a sophisticated product made of rivets, serrated rings and caps.
These components are manufactured as deep-drawn brass parts – at least most of the time. The subsequent coating or colouring is also common. This serves on the one hand to protect against corrosion, but on the other hand also has fashionable reasons and allows design distinctiveness.
However, nickel-containing coatings are now regarded as allergy triggers. Wieland has therefore developed a special "nickel silver" that has the functional and optical properties of genuine nickel silver - but contains no nickel at all. The innovative material kills two birds with one stone: it makes a coating superfluous and thus prevents possible nickel allergies.
In addition to manganese and tin, the copper alloy FX9 also contains small amounts of aluminium and is supplied as a rolled product. Because of its anti-allergenic properties, it is also used in other clothing accessories and spectacle frames. A particular challenge for Wieland is that, due to constantly changing fashion trends, great flexibility - both in terms of quantities and of strip thicknesses and widths – is always required.
Learn more about
Nickel-free alloy FX9
Sturdy, eye-catching buttons are character defining for jeans. Thanks to Wieland’s nickel-free "nickel silver", they can be produced without allergy-inducing nickel-containing coatings.
