Gend'erred' Shirt

We were in Reliance Trends (yes, and rumour has it that those boys are also getting into the notebook manufacturing Industry, phew) and my Uncle asked us, while pointing towards a fairly unisexual(?) shirt whether it was womens wear or menswear?

I had no clue and in my defence it was not outlandishly pink neither was it right out of the Peter England line. So, how do you know whether a formal shirt put up in the middle of nowhere is supposed to adorn the body of a beautiful woman or some clumsy man?

They say God lies in the details and a simple answer to that question is left over right and right over left... HuHh(yup, that was my pristine reaction.. aint i just great with words?)

Buttons on women's shirts are on the left and they are on the right on men's shirts. Notice the buttons on the left in the image-:

image courtesy:www.thomaspink.com



Enlarge the image and you will understand what I am talking about.

The next obvious question is, WHY?

Apparently we have history to blame for it. We can go back a few hundred years when men used to button themselves whereas the wealthy women had chambermaids to button the shirts for them. After all for the wealthy women during that time it would have been akin to hard labour to put on their clothes without any help. Soon they asked their tailors to sew the buttons on the other side so that most of their right handed maids did not waste too much time in dressing them up.

The question that begs to be asked is why is the practice still followed? I cannot think of many women out there other than perhaps Queen Elizabeth who would ask maids to dress them up and the last time I checked she did not think very highly of formal shirts!

Would it not be more convenient for most of the right handed women to have the buttons on the right side to make it easier for them?

While I was digging through the internet in search of an answer I found this-:

"They put buttons on the Left because if they didn't it probably wouldn't look Right"