Amoureuse des boutons, Nicola en possède 300'000 !

I have to tell you right away that it's not Estavanos in Gruyère, but Estévenos in the Glam. It's between Romont and Bull. It's a country road through the meadows. And then when you get all the way up, you see a big sign, the Button Museum. At the beginning of the afternoon, it would be good for a big button box. Yes, okay. Au revoir, madame. Merci. Every time I receive a button box in the garden, there are things that we have. And there are always a few buttons that are still unknown. It's breathtaking. No, it's not buttons. Ah yes, ah yes, ah yes. Yes, buttons! With paintings on them. So I have to read this. What is this, dear madame? After reading an article about your museum last year, I knew that I had finally found a place where buttons would be appreciated. It must have been 40 years that I have been looking at them at the bottom of my mother's sewing box. She went away last year. So I released them, and it is with great pleasure that I offer them to your museum. 1951, and it's called Neve. Magnificent, magnificent, winter landscapes. Oh, that's beautiful. I'm all emotional. Here it is, madame, follow me. It's over there. Here, come in, come in. This is the kingdom of buttons. 10,000 buttons sewn. Here you are in the heart of the button museum. Come in, come in. You can come in. Very simply, that's it. So this year our theme is the waltz of shapes. And the button is not always round. So I invite you to go and look at all this. So please start, and then we'll meet a little later. Here are the oldest buttons in the museum. Right above your head. Made of metal. And they were buttons worn by young fishermen. They date from the 16th century. They had buttons in the shape of saints. Look at this one. That's what I'm saying. They also simply have flowers. Yes, but still. It's not an ordinary museum. It's a museum that, through the button, like a kind of magic key, puts us in touch with the love we may have had for our ancestors. So it's a little museum of joyful nostalgia. You can go in. She had a lot of gifts. Yes, but I don't know what they were made of. Yes, that's right. Yes, that's for sure. So we'll go in. We had, but then we threw everything away. It's a walk, isn't it? It's quite affordable, the button. It's not a painting. It's not something for... Why should we have a great culture? Maybe a great instruction? The button can be seen everywhere. It may be easy to admit a button. But it's not easy to admit a button. If you don't reject it, you think it's something ordinary. People often ask me why I made a museum. Because I had these two little buttons from my grandmother to me. And since I'm over 70, I imagine that one day I'll leave this world. And so I didn't agree that the beautiful box with the beautiful buttons from my grandmother would go to waste. I didn't agree to that. I asked myself that question one night before going to bed. The next morning I woke up and I had a dream that said to me, you only have to make a museum. A button can be beautiful. It can even be a little damaged. And it's always important. What matters to me is the incredible variety of buttons, more or less common use. But I have a few different environments of existence. So for me it's good because it's the reflection of society. Who hasn't played with buttons? Girls, boys, everyone has enjoyed touching them, making noise with them, playing with them, all kinds of games with these buttons. My dream was really to preserve, to forget the destruction of these little buttons, supposedly banal, but precious. These little objects have been used, have been loved, have gone through tragedies, happiness, and all that comes with it. Yes, it's easy for everyone. Tell us, have you ever been to a young lady's house to look for things? Roughly speaking, maybe four years, between the idea and the opening of the museum. I had a box with buttons, I would say maybe 50 buttons at the beginning. And then a lot of ladies came with boxes from their grandmothers, their great-aunts, neighbors, etc. And at the same time, we were rich with 50,000 buttons. Now we can't count anymore, but there are more than 200,000. And all these ladies stayed. They couldn't leave history, so they became little hands. I think it's good, but would I like more? I would like more, that there are a few that stand out from the ordinary. I'll look for them. So here we can put it, and maybe here. The role I gave myself is artistic director. That's what I call myself for her. General de Gaulle, because I'm a bit authoritarian. When I say it, it's like that, and not otherwise, of course. I have to admit that. I was immediately in the world of seeing. That's something that was given to me as soon as I came into the world. I see it as a grace. When I was a little girl, I wanted to share the beauty of a ray of sun on a pond, on a lake. In Holland, there's a lot of water. So I would show the reflection of the sun on a vase, a little wet like that. And the other children I said that to, look how beautiful it is. They laughed at me, because it wasn't their age to see beauty in a reflection of water. It filled me with happiness. I was born in Amsterdam in 1939, on the 29th of July. My father worked in the cinema industry. He was a financial director of about twenty cinemas in Holland and Belgium. And my mother was a housewife, with help for the household. I was always dressed according to the latest fashion, which made me a bit the laughing stock of some other children. It was a bit heavy to wear. When I was eight years old, I wanted to be a movie star, but that was eight years old. When I was fourteen, I didn't want that anymore. I wanted to be a painter. There was a bit of resistance because they saw a brighter future for me than being a painter and maybe not having any success, etc. I got married when I was young, and since Amsterdam, I went to Geneva with my young husband. This farm and I are almost a couple. We accepted each other at first sight. I've been living here for nearly 27 years. It took me six months to clean up. It was a mess, but after cleaning up, it turned out to be a jewel. I have a taste for luxury. I've always had a taste for luxury, but since I can't afford it, I've become very skilled at finding things that make me feel a certain luxury of beauty, calm and harmony. I have my old coat, which will soon reach the age of 20. It's getting more and more horrible, but it doesn't matter. It keeps me warm, and I can do anything with it. I can go to the beach, and I often go there to pick up branches, to pick up flowers that are commonly called fanné, and I find that they persist in these flowers that are thrown away. There is still so much beauty that can stay for a while. So I like to make arrangements. Where does this energy come from? I don't know. From the inside. That's how it is. I love doing what I do. Climbing here, falling there, getting up in the holes. It's like life. It's a long way. We walk, we fall, we get up, and we walk again, and we fall, and we get up, and so on until the end. Making bouquets of dried flowers started as a hobby. It turned into a living. And now it's a hobby again. I've exhibited a lot in different galleries in Geneva. It was a long time ago. It was in the 1970s, when we didn't yet know the fashion of dried bouquets in the Roman world. Little by little, it became known, and the big shops started showing bouquets with dried flowers. Horrible. When I saw that, I said to myself, it's time to stop. This is cute, because there's a pendant. Once the lady looks to the left, once to the right. They play badminton. Look, some kind of coin. No, this is modern. So we'll do modern. And modern for you is you. If you want, sorry? Modern means which... 20th. That's not very old. That's not the same thing. With a glow. No, no, it's not that. We are in contact with button collectors, and it is especially Madame Guitardudin who comes to me to tell me, no, no, that's false, that's not brass, but it's this and that. She also teaches me if you are well in time. No, not that. It's interesting for me to learn the ages, the values, the materials, but it won't make a big change in my appreciation of the button. The button is an object that can be modest and have a great value for me. That's why there are often buttons of this kind that are very pretty, but they are rusty and you can't polish them because they get in the way. Now, this is a little plaster button, in my opinion. Look. But no. It's glass. Forget it. Glass. Are you sure? Yes, very sure. Touch it against the tooth. If you have real teeth. I have real teeth. In that case, you'll see. It makes noise. I'll put it aside. This is glass. This is my work for 20 years. An accumulation. I have a wish, a dream, that it becomes an extension of the museum. I'd like to make a male space with all the buttons of the military, of the firemen, of the shooting society, of the singing, of everything that exists and everything that makes buttons. Metallism. It's something that you can't keep to yourself. I think that a beauty kept in a safe, for example, is the worst, because it must live, it must be seen, it must be loved. It must not be punished. The one who sees himself also has, in my opinion, a certain obligation to learn to see the beautiful, because I know that it gives joy. And I say that a happy being is a gift for the other. Pearls, conch, celluloid, wood, corozo. It's beautiful. A pearl.