Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 9, 1992 TAG: 9203070229
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: AUSTIN, TEXAS LENGTH: Short
After a year of research into that fact, a professor still isn't sure why they do it differently.
Judith Lopez, an assistant professor of home economics at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, says buttoning up hasn't always been this way. Women used to wear clothes that buttoned like men's.
Her theory, which she says has been discussed for years, is that men's clothing was made to button left-over-right because swords commonly were worn on the left hip. If a man's coat buttoned the other way, the sword might have caught in the flap while he was drawing it.
It is less clear when and why women's clothing changed. Lopez says fashion-conscious aristocrats may have had servants dress them, prompting dressmakers to put the buttons and holes in reverse order.
Lopez persevered in her research even though the university buttoned up its pockets when she asked for a grant to study the issue.
"It's one of those things that so many of my students asked, so I thought I would find out," she said. - Associated Press
by CNB