Buttoning Up Savings : Fashion: Consumers on a tight budget are looking for ways to change the look of garments without spending a lot of money.

Although almost everyone likes buying new clothes, not everyone can afford to splurge, especially in these recessionary times. Thankfully, there are other ways to spruce up existing wardrobes. One simple alteration is to revamp by replacing buttons--a quick, easy and often cheap way to update an old jacket or blouse, or improve a new one.

Most fabric stores stock a variety of buttons, but some cater exclusively to button connoisseurs, such as the 25-year-old Tender Buttons in New York City.

Changing buttons on clothing is becoming a popular pastime, says Bead Source assistant manager Sandy Bluvband. Bead Source in Reseda houses scores of unusual rhinestone-encrusted buttons, as well as some Austrian crystal buttons. New hardware stocked in the tiny store near Sherman Way and Reseda Boulevard makes it possible to make a button out of almost any stone or charm. For 50 cents, you can buy a silver-tone button base. The base is ready for a charm or ornament to be sewed on, or a flat-surfaced fake gemstone to be glued on.

“It’s a way of personalizing an outfit. Someone else might have the same shirt, but if they make their own buttons, it makes it one of a kind,” Bluvband says.

Women who want to change buttons on an outfit without sewing or crafting them can take advantage of ready-to-wear button covers. At Flair boutique in Encino, Clickits button covers sell for $14 and come in a variety of styles ranging from multicolored plastic flowers to pearls.

Button covers are a new arrival at Bullock’s in Sherman Oaks Fashion Square. Dominating the selection are antique-looking covers incorporating pearls and Western-style silver ones for between $15 to $30.

George Small, who, with wife Pattie Powers, co-owns Chameleon, a West Los Angeles button shop, thinks the main reason buttons are so hot right now is that those used on most ready-to-wear garments are cheap.

“It seems to be the first place manufacturers cut corners,” Small says. Quality buttons are scarce, says Small, who sells them for between 75 cents for a plastic button to $50 apiece. He has heard tales of shoplifters cutting off expensive buttons in chic ready-to-wear boutiques.

Stores obtain buttons for sale from a variety of sources. Small says he and his wife find most of theirs at estate sales, at rural antique stores or through “grandmothers who bring them in to sell.”

“The right button can make an outfit; the wrong button can really wreck it,” says Bill Hargate, costume designer for CBS’ “Murphy Brown.” Hargate, who frequently changes buttons, keeps a large cardboard box of buttons in his office closet at Burbank’s Warner Bros. Studios, to replace those that don’t cut the fashion mustard on camera. He purchased most of his personal stockpile at a now-defunct notions warehouse.

Hargate says he frequently removes white buttons from colored men’s dress shirts and dips them in dye so they match the shirt. He has also covered buttons on women’s jackets with fabric from hems and cuffs. The costume designer also changes buttons on jackets or blouses when they look cheap and has even made earrings to match out of the same buttons, if spares are available.

Becca Hoover of Calabasas knows firsthand how buttons can destroy the look of a garment. She bought a knit suit at Nordstrom that was adorned with what she calls “chintzy gold buttons” and replaced them with some she found in a fabric store.

“Today’s buttons sometimes look sort of cheap,” says Hoover, who admits she has been eyeing the Southwestern-style button covers she’s seen in shops of late but has yet to splurge.

“Some people have a shoe fetish, I have a button fetish,” says Joyce Braun, vice president of merchandising for Catalina, a Los Angeles swimwear manufacturer. Braun changes buttons constantly on new outfits because, she says, even better ready-to-wear designers are using cheaper buttons. Often, she’ll clip a few from a jacket she isn’t wearing and attach them to something new in need of a lift.

Even fabulous buttons at a value can add status where none previously existed. Fashion show producer Yvette Crosby says she haunts fabric stores for unusual buttons, including those with the double Cs, similar to those used at the house of Chanel in Paris. Crosby, who is also an accomplished seamstress, recently added these fabulous fakes to a twin sweater set. Total investment: less than $10.

Braun says she thinks people who are detail-minded appreciate what buttons do for an outfit.

“I think women now recognize that buttons are the jewelry of a dress,” she said, “and they should make a statement.”