A fastening designed for someone else
On a woman’s shirt, the buttons are traditionally on the wearer’s left; on a man’s, they are on the right. One commonly cited explanation begins not with the wearer’s hands, but with the person dressing her.
A wealthy woman might have a servant fasten her clothes. Standing face-to-face, the dresser encountered the garment from the opposite side. The left-side button placement made the fastening easier for a right-handed servant to manage from that position. Men’s clothing, by contrast, was generally arranged for the wearer to dress himself.
From practical choice to lasting convention
Once a clothing style became familiar, makers had reason to keep reproducing it. Dressers and wearers could handle garments without learning a new arrangement, and shops could make shirts according to established expectations. A small convenience for a particular way of getting dressed could therefore outlast the circumstances that made it useful.
Today, most people fasten their own shirts, but the old distinction remains in mass-produced clothing. The buttons preserve a trace of a time when a wealthy woman’s shirt could be designed around the hands of the person standing opposite her.
