En medio de la crisis económica argentina, Gabriel enfrenta el desafío de preservar la botonera que su padre fundó hace más de 50 años. Este negocio, símbolo de esfuerzo y dedicación, resiste en un barrio que alguna vez fue un epicentro textil y ahora se encuentra desierto. La historia refleja no solo la tenacidad familiar, sino también las dificultades del sector textil frente a las importaciones y los cambios económicos.
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00:00because we are going to introduce ourselves in a story that has to do with the economic crisis that Argentina is experiencing
00:08and that it has experienced in other moments.
00:10Decades ago, the economic issue has always crossed us, in the lives of each one of us.
00:16But in this case, we are going to tell the story of someone who does not want to cling to a company that founded and raised his father,
00:25but because he wants to save, with pride, what took a lot of effort from his father,
00:30who started working as a bootlicker at the age of six.
00:34That life of effort led his father to build a button house of more than, I don't know how many buttons.
00:42Imagine a museum, imagine a button museum and a place of reference for Villacrespo,
00:47where I suppose many solutions would arise in matters of clothing.
00:53We are here with the owner of this button house.
00:56I thought it was a button shop, but it is a button house in Villacrespo and Michi Mora is here to introduce the story.
01:03How are you, Michi?
01:06Alberto, this business is more than 50 years old.
01:09How many buttons does it have inside?
01:10We are going to ask Gabriel, who is the owner and who holds this place,
01:16which not only has buttons, but is clearly his strong point.
01:20You were just telling me, it's hard for me to give up because it's not business, it's my life, it's my feeling, it's my story.
01:28Yes, of course.
01:29Well, here is a story that my father was the founder of, where he started out of nowhere.
01:35Times when in Argentina people with effort, with work, with dedication could take steps back.
01:41Today it is difficult to maintain what one has.
01:44Unfortunately, in the textile sector, for many years it has started to go back, back, back.
01:50And well, today the textile part is very small.
01:55A lot of imported things come.
01:58After, when Menem opened the import, the first thing that came in was the imported button, the imported buckle, the imported zipper.
02:07And then the finished clothes started to come in.
02:12So, from now on, great moments never happened again.
02:18And well, today we are in a moment where we are really standing.
02:21Beyond the fact that today this neighborhood, Villa Crespo, before Canning, which is now Calabrín Ortiz,
02:27was full of clothing manufacturers, it was all one next to the other.
02:31There was a world and today it is a desert.
02:37The people, the few people who are in the clothes, have gone to flowers.
02:40And changing a business of these categories is impossible.
02:45While we continue to keep customers from that glorious time,
02:49for friendship and for others who continue to come here, we are a little isolated from what is ...
02:55The area where you can consume.
02:57The textile consumption area.
03:00Eduardo told me that the place beyond what we are seeing, what we are showing in the image,
03:04are two more floors of warehouses where you can find what you can think of as a nursery.
03:10Did you have 12 people working here?
03:12More. We had saleswomen and then there were three floor employees, four button makers, four administrative employees.
03:21Because at that time, accounting books were all made with inks, all manual.
03:27So, well, there were many administrative employees and others.
03:30Gabriel.
03:31And today I have been alone. Yes, I listen.
03:34Well, that's what I wanted to refer to. Tell me about today, because you were talking about a time of glory,
03:39but they also went through circumstances in the 90s where the button maker almost closed it.
03:46Today, what do you need to continue to subsist in this moment of economic difficulties?
03:53Well, it's very difficult to say what I need, because the country needs what ...
03:59Argentina has gone through a stage where the industrialists ...
04:03We, at the time when democracy began, Alfonso V, my father and I had a very important reserve.
04:09I dare to talk to you about more than a million dollars in business reserves.
04:14I wanted to buy land because I'm crazy and passionate about the field.
04:18My father says to me, son, the field at that time left us nothing, and it was true.
04:22We are going to put a factory of elastics, belt elastics, vertex elastics, all kinds of elastics for clothing.
04:28I said, make one more sacrifice and then you are going to buy three fields.
04:32We traveled to Germany, we brought the best machines, technology and others.
04:36We started to manufacture elastics with a lot of difficulties that there was even to get a phone.
04:44It was a lottery, and when the government of Menem came, who had done good things,
04:51but in the textile or industrial part destroyed a little the national industry,
04:56to bring an elastic meter from China, it cost 50% to manufacture it here.
05:02And I imagine that your father, Gabriel, your father got sick when he saw the difficulties
05:06and that perhaps he had to evaluate whether to close or not, or continue, because there was a world of buttons.
05:12Here we look at each other and ask ourselves, which is the most exotic button?
05:16The stories that will be behind those buttons and the making of the garments with those same buttons.
05:23You know that the clothes of before were much more complex than they are now,
05:29they are much simpler things.
05:31With respect to my father, if he was bad.
05:33My father was a guy who did not have studies, but he had a very important life culture
05:39that gave him the street and having been born below.
05:42When he lost everything, I told him, Dad, please don't get sick.
05:45No, son, he told me, forgive the expression, but I told myself, the world comes in balls and I'm going to go in balls.
05:51What are you going to do? The only wealth I have is my family, my children, my wife,
05:55and no one is going to take that wealth from me.
05:57The money, I shit. If I can, I will return it to the law, if not, as long as I have health and joy.
06:03Bad luck, son, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
06:06But I was always hurt by the lack of respect there is towards the people who invest in the country,
06:12because as soon as the importation opened and we came down,
06:16we could not pay the salaries, we could not pay, comply with the taxes,
06:20and then we went on to be morosos, intimations.
06:23And I say, we invest everything in Argentina, and it turns out that today we are even bad people,
06:29because we are morosos, debtors.
06:31And you recovered from each of those crises, right?
06:34Now, what does it mean that someone...
06:36No, no, no, we were there when I was very hurt.
06:38I imagine, I imagine, people who go kilometers and kilometers to look for a button that they can not find anywhere else.
06:43Tell me a story, something exotic that they have gone to ask you.
06:49No, I don't have a story of that kind, because they are usually confectionists,
06:52that the confectionery in Argentina brought the fashion copied from Europe,
06:56and more or less the manufacturer also traveled and knew what was going to be used.
07:01There is always a strange person who tells you something strange and looks for something strange,
07:06but I don't have, let's say, in that sense that someone came to look for a button.
07:13Look, what you come to look for, you will find it, Eduardo,
07:15because there are colors, sizes, pearls, round, flat.
07:19I even wanted to come here because I'm seeing, if I'm not mistaken,
07:23I had seen some little fish too, even, you said, something strange, look here.
07:28Ah, no, look, they were like figures, as if they were Mayan figures.
07:31You are going to find what you can think of in your imagination.
07:34It's incredible, it's incredible.
07:35To close, Gabriel, the most expensive button there is, how much is it worth?
07:41The most expensive button there was at one time was the button of Nacar.
07:44Look, here are some little ones.
07:45There are the Nacarados, of course.
07:46This is Nacar, but it is not Nacarado, this is Nacar.
07:49Nacar.
07:50These were buttons that came from Japan.
07:52You see that the blade was made by hand and they were sewn,
07:55they came in hand-sewn plates so that they do not break.
07:57Beautiful.
07:58That was a button that was close to a dollar, the button of cost, at that time.
08:04And for what type of garment was it used?
08:06For a jacket?
08:08No, a jacket.
08:09For jackets, for bags, things, according to, yes, for all kinds of,
08:14usually for women's clothes.
08:16Of course.
08:17And they have come to me to buy, for there are silverware.
08:19Or for linen clothes.
08:20To use the Nacar and work with gold and silver.
08:23For linen clothes.
08:24There is someone who is blowing, who knows more than me.
08:28He is our fashion specialist, right?
08:30Of course.
08:31Very good.
08:32Ah, very good, very good.
08:33Actually, I'm talking about politics, but ...
08:35He talks about politics, but he says he specializes in fashion too.
08:38What he knows is this.
08:39Of course.
08:40Gabriel, I hope you can solve all the complexity that the present moment poses
08:48and you can subsist with this that makes you proud, because it is directly thinking about your old man.
08:55Eduardo, from now on, I am grateful for the kindness of all of you,
08:58for being concerned and looking at people's stories.
09:01So, very grateful.
09:03And well, I tell you, he is my father.
09:06As long as he is healthy, it is the most important thing.
09:09So, grateful, I send you all a big hug and a good program.
09:13Go ahead, Gabriel, go ahead.