Why buttons are on right for men

There is a purpose! The reason is historical, says Melanie M. Since most people were right-handed, this made it easier for someone standing across from you to button your dress. Once again, the right-handed assumption played a role since "access to a weapon However, it was illegal in many places to be dressed like a man in public, so perhaps having a difference in buttoning confirmed that you were wearing a female dress.

IE 11 is not supported. So shirts whose open flap is on the right, one theory goes , makes it easier for them to open with those free hands for breastfeeding.

Another theory: horses. Women, to the extent women rode horses, rode sidesaddle, to the right—so putting their shirt and dress buttons on the left reduced, to some extent, the breeze that would flow into their shirts as they were trotting along. Another theory: spite. One theory holds that manufacturers took advantage of little differences in clothing to emphasize bigger differences between the genders.

For a corollary to that, we can thank, again, Napoleon. That hand-in-waistcoat pose? Women, apparently, used to mock the emperor by mimicking that pose. The most reasonable theory, though, has to do with the fact that, when clothing conventions were becoming standardized, many women did not dress themselves.

Wealthy women, in particular. And since buttons were expensive, with intricately fastened clothing doubling as luxury items, the conventions about them were decided by the wealthy. Servants were often required to help rich ladies get into and out of their elaborately buttoned dresses—and servants, like everyone else, were most commonly right-handed. Early buttons tended to fit into a loop, rather than the reinforced buttonholes we're used to seeing today those didn't come around until the 13th century.

Buttons became a luxury item in the 13th century, and they were so valuable that they were even used as currency via Vice. In the 18th century, buttons were featured on clothing for "almost entirely cosmetic" reasons, says Franco Jacassi, fashion consultant and the man with the largest private collection of buttons. They were so valuable that travelers who ran out of money could pluck a button off of their jacket and use it to pay for things — how convenient!

Historians theorize that the button practice traces back to the military Shutterstock. Where did buttons come from?