Courtesy: http://bit.ly/TDPIif
Enlightenment is great, isn’t it? My big ideas only seem to come occasionally, beer is usually involved, and they’re mostly not interesting enough to plaster all over the Internet. This isn’t much different, this thought is about fashion, and I’m writing about it anyway. I know. I’m hardly a fashion guru nor do I have any authority to dispense advice in that area. However, it was a recent gathering with friends that made me realize all the crap that I don’t know hardly anything about. Like fashion. Or history.
On a rare weekday off from work, my pals and I headed down to our local English look-alike pub, Sir Benedict’s Tavern on the Lake. Every Thursday or so, the bar feature an impromptu group of Celtic musicians who sit in the round and play it out. I’ve worked pretty much every weeknight for the last three years, and hadn’t seen this in a while.
The fiddles are taking over
Somehow during the crazy fiddle takeover, my friend Patrick mentioned he’d been on the road a lot lately for work. Driving a lot, listening the radio a lot, hearing the same stories a lot, and, oh, by the way, did you know? Women’s dress shirts have buttons on the opposite side of men’s.
Wait.
What?
No, I did not know. You mean to tell me I’ve been paddling along my whole adult life, staring at dress shirts, and never realizing they are different?
“Yes”, says Patrick.
“Why?”, I’m asking.
“Because,” he says, “women used to have someone else dress them, and it was easier to button from the left instead of the right.”
KNOWLEDGE DROPPED. Shit just got real.
Courtesy: http://bit.ly/SoiNCn
This, of course, blows my small brain away. This is something I should probably know about. I’m mildly embarrassed.
According to some light digging on Wiki (my sources run deep), there isn’t a truly accessible and historical reason as to why (at least not after one Google search), but common knowledge suggests a simple rational dating back to a time when all you little ladies couldn’t dress yourselves.
Courtesy: http://bit.ly/U1cxwo
Yup. Women’s buttons are on the left because the ladies who could actually afford to have buttons would use a hand maid (who were more often right-handed) to help them actually button them. Thus the placement was more convenient for the maid. Joy.
So, in the middle of two pitchers and some rambunctious Celtic music, I think I just received my first Irish dressing blessing. Just a little bit of knowledge that changed my world for a millisecond. Now I know.
In the meantime, I wish someone would dress me today. I’m still in my pajamas.
Courtesy: http://bit.ly/116uzUk
