Bel
The traditional (though not necessarily true) explanation for men's clothes is that they had to be consistent all the way through - imagine buttoning a shirt and a coat in different directions! - and so, for all the right-handed men with swords on the left, they needed coats with left buttoning over right.
This makes sense as far as it goes, and I'm prepared to accept it may well be the truth. The explanations offered for the women, however, all seem a bit specious to me.
1. As offered here - that women tended to be dressed by others... hmmm...
2. The women tended to suckle on the right breast and so found right-over-left buttons more convenient...
What I have noticed is that in India (South India), where women and men both wear long strips of cloth wrapped around the waist (and a separate cloth to cover the upper torso whenever those blamed English missionaries are around talking about the sin of exposing oneself!!), men and women tie them in different directions.
This seems to me to suggest that the difference may have more to do with the symbolism of left-right and man-woman than any practical issue concerning the way clothes function.
But what do I know...
cheer
the sunshine warrior
