The Afghani Kuchi button shown above, was bought from a roadside jewelry stall in Islamabad, Pakistan. Today, it is one of the few places one can find Afghani jewelry for sale. Until a year ago, that was not the case. Afghani earrings, bangles, buttons, hair ornaments, and other traditional handicrafts steadily flooded the market starting the 1990s; last year, they all but disappeared. The story of this disappearance is not just one of demand and supply, but of global networks of slow violence and persecution.
According to Abdul Hameed*, the shop owner, the button belonged to a member of the Kuchi tribe. He acquired this piece, and other such artifacts, from a family that fled the country after the war. Of Afghani origin himself, Hameed’s trade is facilitated by his personal connections to friends and family in Afghanistan, some of whom belong to the Kuchi tribe. According to Hameed, the piece was handcrafted by Kuchi craftsmen in Eastern Afghanistan out of old, repurposed Kuchi components,
The button can be sewn or just hanged from any shirt(it has a hook in the back)
This ornament can also be worn as a headpiece
