h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Buttons do go back to the days when men wore swords, so the 'not getting the sword caught in your jacket' hypothesis might work. I read once that women's blouses button the way they do for ease of breast-feeding. If a woman holds her baby in her left arm (as many seem to), it's not too difficult to get her right breast out of a 'right-over-left' buttoned blouse to feed it. Getting a breast to it from a 'left-over-right' buttoned blouse would be more difficult. This assumes that the woman isn't wearing a bra, or is wearing a front-loader. As bras are a more recent invention than buttons, this does not pose a problem for this theory.

Short of time, and with my National Library expired, I contacted 'Ask a Librarian' and received this reply:
'A man's clothing buttons left over right and women's vice versa because in Georgian and Victorian times, gentlemen would be handed their clothing by a valet and dress themselves. Buttons on the right made this simpler for right-handed people. Ladies were dressed by their personal maids, for whom it was easier to have the buttons on the opposite side.'
So: unless someone is will to pay me to do a research project at the V&A, that will have to do

I'm right-handed and I find shirts that button 'left-over-right' a pain to do up. But then, I am a woman, so it's probably a case of 'what you're used to is easiest'.

I do have another problem with this theory, though. Ladies' maids would do things like styling the lady's hair, lacing her stays or doing up anything that fastened at the back or couldn't be done one-handed. Buttons on sleeves often went through a loop; buttons on boots always did. These buttons required a button-hook, and even then a maid would have made the job easier. I'm not sure a lady would have used a maid to do up something that fastened at the front, like a blouse, jacket or coat. So I'm not convinced by the 'lady's maid' theory.

*sobs quietly*

What is it going to take to convince you???