September 17, 2009

Button Me Up

Hey did anyone of you ever wonder about the buttons in men's and women's shirt? Why is it on the opposite for men and women?

I was in front of my PC and working as usual... All of a sudden this question popped out of my head. I immediately started looking at my male and female colleagues' shirt :) And I noticed that the ladies shirt had buttons at left while men's shirt had it at right. Why is it so?

Well, i soon searched for an answer in Google.
The answer for the button conventions lies in the 19th century practice. It is because, way back in 19th century, well-off Victorian women did not dress themselves. They had maids and servants to deck them up. So their dress was designed to be handled by right-handed servants. Well, men on the other hand, dressed themselves though they had maids to assist in other stuffs. So having buttons on right hand side for men's shirts made more sense. This tradition continued and no one ever bothered to change the convention. Though, we do not have maids to assist us these days, we continue buttoning our shirts like a left-handed person :)
The next immediate question that burst out of my mind was - Are the buttons/zips of pants in men and women are also designed in a similar way? Now, don't you dare to peep in at you colleagues or neighbors. Haha. Find it out yourself :)

1 comment:

  1. For the obvious reason that "the opposite attracts"!! :)))

    ReplyDelete

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