The beautiful symbolism of our hexagon buttons

Hexagons feature throughout many Abi-K designs, so we thought we’d share with you their importance and symbolism. The repeating hexagon pattern is common in the vintage Japanese obi silks used in our products. The scale varies, displaying bold geometric designs, or smaller repeating details. This repeating pattern is called ‘Kikko’, which means tortoiseshell. In Japanese culture this represents ‘happiness and longevity’, and often used in wedding kimonos. 

We use the hexagon throughout our products, to give everyone a little bit of happiness and longevity, and it’s simple geometric shape fits well with the clean lines and construction of our products. Abi-K hexagon buttons punctuate our asymmetric clutch bags, shoulder bags, clutch purses and small purses. They are laser etched from either leather or pearlised acrylic. Each batch is made bespoke specifically for us by a local specialist in marquetry. Joe at Heritage Inlay Design Ltd http://www.heritageinlay.com/ has been laser etching our buttons since 2011. He’s Brighton based, and on the same road where Abi hand selects each of her leather skins for each collection. Abi can determine exactly what size each button is, and the laser engraves her logo and ‘limited edition’ or ‘made in England’ on each button.

The same process is used for our leather labels stitched into every handbag.

Take a look at our short videos on Instagram of the laser machine in action at Joe’s workshop:

https://instagram.com/p/BjcUuU8HW1t/

https://instagram.com/p/BjcpBc8njwI/

 

Hexagon button

Repeating hexagon ‘kikko’ pattern Japanese silk

 

 

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