---
title: "Why Men's and Women's Buttons Sit on Opposite Sides"
description: "Why men's and women's buttons sit on opposite sides is undocumented: the men's rule is in print by 1751, and the women's settles in the 1860s."
type: Find
url: https://teazle.art/finds/why-mens-womens-buttons-opposite-sides
published: 2026-10-16
updated: 2026-10-16
author: "The Teazle editors"
image: https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/d5ebec16daa6277280b7e0718fc5421c482065c9-2867x4000.jpg?w=1600&fit=max&q=78&auto=format
image_license: CC0
---

# Why Men's and Women's Buttons Sit on Opposite Sides

*Why do men's and women's shirts button on different sides? Nobody has documented the reason. The men's rule is in print by 1751, 18th-century women's garments follow it, and the popular stories do not hold up.*

![A cream silk waistcoat on a mannequin with a vertical row of small buttons down the center front, a narrow border of colored floral embroidery along the edge, and embroidered pocket flaps at the hem.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/d5ebec16daa6277280b7e0718fc5421c482065c9-2867x4000.jpg?w=1280&fit=max&q=78&auto=format)
*Waistcoat, French, 1760–70. Silk, cotton. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.2855. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0*

Nobody has documented why. The convention is easier to date than to explain. Men's garments close with the buttons on the right by the mid-18th century, 18th-century women's garments in museum records do the same, and the women's rule reverses only in the 1860s and 1870s. The popular explanations rest on anecdote.

## Which side is which?

On a man's shirt or coat the buttons sit on the wearer's right and the [buttonhole](https://teazle.art/glossary/buttonhole.md) on the left, so the left front laps over the right. A woman's garment is the reverse: buttons on the wearer's left, buttonholes on the right, the right front on top. The difference runs through every button-front garment, down to the [placket](https://teazle.art/glossary/placket.md) of a modern shirt.

The men's rule is already written down in 1751. The *Encyclopédie* of Diderot and d'Alembert defines the buttonhole as an opening cut in garments, "d'homme sur-tout" (men's especially), and states: "Le bouton est à droite, & la boutonniere est à gauche" (the button is on the right and the buttonhole on the left). The entry does not say whose right, but museum records of men's [waistcoats](https://teazle.art/glossary/waistcoat.md) of the same decades are explicit. The Victoria and Albert Museum counts 12 worked buttonholes along the left front, and the buttons on the right front, of a British waistcoat of 1755–60, and 13 on the left front of a French one of the 1760s. The Met's French silk waistcoat of 1760–70 appears to follow suit: in the museum photograph the buttonholes are cut in the wearer's left front, which laps over the right.

![A cream silk waistcoat on a mannequin with a vertical row of small buttons down the center front, a narrow border of colored floral embroidery along the edge, and embroidered pocket flaps at the hem.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/d5ebec16daa6277280b7e0718fc5421c482065c9-2867x4000.jpg?w=1280&fit=max&q=78&auto=format)
*Waistcoat, French, 1760–70. Silk, cotton. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.2855. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0*

## When does the difference first show up for women?

Not in the 18th century. The same V&A records put women's buttons on the men's side. A woman's riding habit of 1770–75 has seven buttons on the right front and the buttonholes on the left. A woman's French Brunswick jacket of 1765–75 has 17 buttons on the right and 17 buttonholes on the left. So do a woman's jacket of the 1780s and women's riding coats of the 1750s, which were cut after men's coats.

The clearest survey of what happened next is by Alexa Bender on marquise.de, a costume-history site. She looked at historical depictions, gives no count, and finds buttons rare on women's dress before the late 18th century. In the 1830s they are rare and split evenly between right and left; in the 1850s left slightly outweighs right; from the late 1860s, when buttons are common on women's dress, all are on the left. She concludes the changeover happened between 1810 and 1860 and was not settled before about 1860.

Treat that as one researcher's reading of pictures. Mary Miley's dress-history blog, relaying unnamed curators, says buttons were seldom used on women's clothes before the 19th century and guesses that the left-hand rule began in the early 20th century with ready-made blouses. A commenter answered with images of buttoned women's clothing from earlier centuries, and Miley softened "almost never" to "seldom".

Two Met dresses show how narrow the window is. In the museum photographs, an American silk dress of 1868–70 appears to have its buttonholes down the [bodice](https://teazle.art/glossary/bodice.md) in the wearer's left front, the male arrangement. An American silk afternoon dress of 1874 appears to have them in the wearer's right front, the female one. Two garments are an anecdote, not a survey. But they fit a convention that was still forming in the late 1860s.

![A woman's olive-green striped silk day dress on a mannequin, with a fitted bodice closing down the center front with fabric-covered buttons, bell-shaped sleeves, and a skirt trimmed with pleated bands and green ribbon.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/72c12a4f014c64af07d8ab36b3e15f30d0846837-1304x2048.jpg?w=1280&fit=max&q=78&auto=format)
*Dress, American, 1868–70. Silk. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, C.I.44.92.1a–c. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0*

![A woman's tan silk afternoon dress on a mannequin, its high-collared bodice closing with a row of small buttons down the center front, with embroidered floral scrolls, fringe, and ribbon bows on the overskirt.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/144059a04388cc00ce0eb59c0b91d0be64c562e0-2501x4000.jpg?w=1280&fit=max&q=78&auto=format)
*Afternoon dress, American, 1874. Silk. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.777a–c. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0*

## Did maids dictate the side?

The explanation repeated most often is that wealthy women were dressed by servants. A right-handed maid facing her mistress finds buttons on the mistress's left easier. The Smithsonian's and The Conversation's explainers, the latter by JuYoung Lee and Caroline Kobia of Mississippi State University, both present it as among the most common accounts. Wikipedia's Buttonhole article calls it lore and says there appears to be no concrete reference to prove or disprove it.

The dates are the problem. If maids set the rule, women's buttons should have sat on the left in the 1700s, when ladies' maids were common. The museum records show them on the right. Bender asks why the switch would take a century, and notes that men also had servants who closed dozens of waistcoat buttons daily. Marcelo de Araujo, in a 2012 article in the Brazilian journal *dObra[s]*, repeats the maid and sword accounts only as what "is believed", and cites a popular history of Victorian fashion (Chrisp, 2005) for the maid story, not a period source.

## What about swords, babies and Napoleon?

*Swords.* The Smithsonian quotes Paul Keers, author of *A Gentleman's Wardrobe*, as telling the Guardian in 2011 that a sword worn on the left hip would catch in a jacket lapped right over left, so a swordsman wanted it left over right. The argument addresses only the men's side, and no tailor's statement of that motive was found.

*Armor.* The Met's 1982 catalog *The Art of Chivalry* says the plates sewn into a medieval surcoat overlapped from left to right to stop a lance point slipping between them, and adds: "Thus, men's jackets button left to right even to the present day!" The passage cites no source for that last link. Araujo, citing Graeme Donald's *Loose Cannons*, repeats it.

*Babies and saddles.* The Smithsonian reports that mothers hold infants on the left arm, and that women riding sidesaddle needed left-side buttons against the breeze, as things "others insist" and "some have argued". The History Facts site calls neither particularly convincing, and no dated garment or period writer was found behind either.

*Napoleon.* The story says women mocked his hand-in-waistcoat pose and he ordered women's shirts buttoned the opposite way. The Smithsonian lists it among the more far-fetched theories, and History Facts calls it almost certainly apocryphal. The pose appeared in portraits by the 1750s, according to Wikipedia. The 1751 *Encyclopédie* entry above predates Napoleon, born in 1769, by almost two decades, and the V&A's woman's jacket of the 1780s still has its buttons on the right.

## So what is actually known?

| Claim | What the sources show |
| --- | --- |
| Men's clothes close left over right in the 1700s | Stated in the 1751 Encyclopédie; recorded on V&A waistcoats of 1755–69; visible in the Met's 1760–70 waistcoat |
| Women's buttons began on the men's side | Recorded on V&A women's garments of the 1750s to 1780s; one survey of depictions agrees |
| The left-side rule for women settles | Changeover placed between 1810 and 1860; all buttons on the left from the late 1860s (one survey) |
| Maids, swords, babies, saddles, Napoleon | Repeated in popular articles; no primary source found for any |

The honest answer is that the origin is not documented. The evidence shows a men's rule that is already stated in 1751, women's garments that follow it through the 18th century, and a women's rule that settles about a century later. Once it formed, it stayed: The Conversation notes that when zippers spread in the early 1900s, clothing companies kept the existing customs for each sex.

Related reading on other 18th-century garment details: [tie-on pockets](/finds/tie-on-pockets-lost-pocket) and [a lady's apron](/finds/ladys-apron-fashion-not-work).

### Where to see them

The three garments in the photographs are in the Costume Institute collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art: the [waistcoat](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/157726), the [1868–70 dress](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/82630) and the [1874 afternoon dress](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/159345). The V&A records cited are searchable by their object numbers in its online collection.


## Sources

1. [L'Encyclopédie, 1st ed., vol. 2 (1751), 'BOUTONNIERE' (Wikisource transcription, pp. 385–386)](https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/L’Encyclopédie/1re_édition/BOUTONNIERE). Diderot and d'Alembert (Wikisource transcription)
2. [Waistcoat, 1755–1760 (T.158-1975)](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O360068/). Victoria and Albert Museum
3. [Waistcoat, 1760–1769 (T.283-1910)](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O357313/). Victoria and Albert Museum
4. [Riding habit, 1770–1775 (269 to B-1890)](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O74100/). Victoria and Albert Museum
5. [Brunswick, 1765–1775 (T.331-1985)](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O115756/). Victoria and Albert Museum
6. [Jacket, 1780s (T.232-1927)](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O352318/). Victoria and Albert Museum
7. [Riding coat, 1750–1759 (T.554-1993)](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O84125/). Victoria and Albert Museum
8. [Waistcoat, French, 1760–70 (2009.300.2855)](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/157726). The Metropolitan Museum of Art
9. [Dress, American, 1868–70 (C.I.44.92.1a–c)](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/82630). The Metropolitan Museum of Art
10. [Afternoon dress, American, 1874 (2009.300.777a–c)](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/159345). The Metropolitan Museum of Art
11. [The Art of Chivalry: European Arms and Armor from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Nickel, Pyhrr and Tarassuk, 1982)](https://archive.org/details/TheArtofChivalryEuropeanArmsandArmorfromTheMetropolitanMuseumofArt). The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Internet Archive full text)
12. [Esquerdo sobre direito (Left over right), Marcelo de Araujo](https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=6277660). dObra[s], vol. 5, no. 12 (2012), pp. 68–76
13. [Buttons Right, Buttons Left, by Alexa Bender](https://www.marquise.de/en/themes/linksrechts.shtml). marquise.de
14. [Men's Shirts Button on the Right. Why Do Women's Button on the Left? (Danny Lewis, updated by Ellen Wexler)](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mens-shirts-button-on-the-right-why-do-womens-button-on-the-left-180957361/). Smithsonian Magazine
15. [Why are buttons and zippers on different sides of men's and women's clothes? (JuYoung Lee and Caroline Kobia)](https://theconversation.com/why-are-buttons-and-zippers-on-different-sides-of-mens-and-womens-clothes-255922). The Conversation
16. [Revisited Myth #89 (Mary Miley)](https://historymyths.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/revisited-myth-89-womens-buttons-are-on-their-left-because-women-were-dressed-by-maids-who-found-it-easier-when-the-buttons-were-on-their-right/). History Myths (blog)
17. [Why Are Men's and Women's Buttons on Opposite Sides?](https://historyfacts.com/arts-culture/article/why-are-mens-and-womens-buttons-on-opposite-sides/). History Facts
18. [Buttonhole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttonhole). Wikipedia
19. [Hand-in-waistcoat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-in-waistcoat). Wikipedia
20. [Napoleon I., 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Napoleon_I.). Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed. (Wikisource)

## Glossary

- [Buttonhole](https://teazle.art/glossary/buttonhole.md): A buttonhole is a reinforced slit or loop in a garment edge through which a button passes to hold the opening closed.
- [Placket](https://teazle.art/glossary/placket.md): A placket is a finished opening in a garment, usually reinforced and fitted with buttons, snaps or a zip, that lets it be put on.
- [Waistcoat](https://teazle.art/glossary/waistcoat.md): A waistcoat is a close-fitting man's garment worn with a coat and buttoned down the front; in the 18th century it was often the most richly decorated piece.
- [Bodice](https://teazle.art/glossary/bodice.md): A bodice is the part of a dress above the waist, or a separate close-fitting upper garment.

Canonical: https://teazle.art/finds/why-mens-womens-buttons-opposite-sides