Take a look at your average coat - the sort with buttons and buttonholes. You’ll notice that the buttonholes are horizontal. If your clothes are ever tight across the chest … like for instance if you’re of the female persuasion, or gaining weight and in denial, or you just like tight shirts, this orientation of the buttonhole ensures that the button will slip to the side and get wedged there solidly. This is a Good Thing, since it helps your buttons to stay buttoned, even if there’s a bit of tension involved.
Now look at a shirt. Here the buttonholes are vertical. This is a Bad Thing, because if you ever experience the aforementioned tightness across the chest, the buttons press against the edge of the buttonhole, causing it to become deformed and the buttons to pop out.
Why don’t shirt buttonholes have the same orientation as coat buttonholes?
if you are wearing a jacket the buttonholes in it take the tension
the shirt ones are a trade off for not putting your shirt over your head like they used to do in d’artagnan movies.
I’ve noticed this same thing before! I’m not sure why the holes go in different directions, but I’m inclined to think it’s just become standard by convention.
In a kind of unrelated thought, have you ever noticed that men’s and women’s jeans button on the opposite sides?
My WAG is that it is easier to button all of your small shirt buttons with the vertical orientation. Not as much an issue where your hands are extended more (with pants), or if the button holes are large and somewhat loose (like a jacket).
lindsay I hadn’t noticed but it makes sense - I know the standard explanation of the shirt thing is “women got dressed by their maids, hence womens clothes fastenings became mirror-imaged”. I suppose once you’ve got right-over-left as being a general chicks clothing thing it would make sense for it to be generally applied
Ethil: I’m told it’s not professional in a workplace environment :eek:
Barb: Noooooooooooo!
Anyway, it’s not just shirts. It also applies to stretchy things like cardigans. If they were’nt meant to stretch across your chest then why do they make them stretchy, dammit!
