Right and Left Buttoning
Men button clothes from right to left, women from left to right. Studying portraits and drawings of buttoned garments, fashion historians have traced the practice back to the fifteeth century, and they believe they understand its origin.
Men, at court, on travels, and on the battlefield, generally dressed themselves. And since most humans are right-handed, the majority of men found it expeditious to have garments button from right to left.
Women who could afford the expensive buttons of the day had female dressing servants. Maids, also predominantly right-handed, and facing buttons head-on, found it easier to fasten their mistresses garments if the buttons and buttonholes were sewn on in a mirror image reversal. Tailors complied and the convention has never been altered or challenged.
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