The semiotics of male coats buttoning

[shredder]

Speaking of writing, I am reminded of two things:

My pen pocket is on the left; and

NJS's publisher's tagline, if I remember correctly, is 'the pen is mightier than the sword' or something to that effect.

The left-over-right closure shall remain, I should think, even in the digital age.

s

[storeynicholas]

There is also the bend sinister in heraldry, denoting a bastard. However, if the equation of left with the illicit and evil is the explanation (or part of the explanation),for men's coat buttoning, that overlooks the point that the left handside of the coat has prominence over the right.

I cannot establish the name of the author of the article but someone has advanced the theory that, in earlier centuries, there was no clear difference and that most clothes closed left over right. However, as women's clothes (for example blouses) became closer to masculine dress (the shirt), it became necessary to make some clear distinction because it would not have been proper for women to be wearing masculine dress as such. The author traces (through illustration), the clear emergence of right over left buttoning for women to around 1860. I am not sure that I am wholly convinced by this one. But there it is.
NJS

[marcelo]

Marcelo,
Judging from Beretta's apparently healthy business, constant news about criminals in many countries being better armed than the police and unfortunate people living in areas where they feel compelled to carry sidearms and have related sartorial challenges, cf., http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/foru ... =concealed, I am not quite persuaded that there are less people carrying guns these days.
...

Thanks for this, Shredder. I am flabbergasted. The only thing I carry resembling a weapon is my umbrella – and not of the sort which killed writer Georgi Markov at Waterloo Bridge.

[marcelo]

Gentlemen -

My apologies for being away for so long, but I have been a bit indisposed over the past few months. I will slowly limp my way back into the bosom of the LL.

I agree that this thread is a cracker, and all of the points noted sound plausible. However, I am surprised that one point has not yet been made: the predominance of the right hand, and, to a lesser degree, the association of evil with the left hand.
...
As for myself, I am happily and fully ambidextrous.

Cheers,
garu

Garu, thanks for this. I am sorry to learn you were indisposed, but glad to know you feel better. Being ambidextrous is a virtue. Can you really sign your name with either hand?

...However, as women's clothes (for example blouses) became closer to masculine dress (the shirt), it became necessary to make some clear distinction because it would not have been proper for women to be wearing masculine dress as such. The author traces (through illustration), the clear emergence of right over left buttoning for women to around 1860. I am not sure that I am wholly convinced by this one. But there it is.
NJS

Not only men, but most women are right-handed too. It is said that a lady's maid would have less trouble to button her lady's blouse if the buttoning followed a different parttern - right hand side over left hand side. Maybe a gentleman's personal gentleman would be sometimes asked to help his master with cuff links, but certainly not with the task of buttoning his coat.

[shredder]

It is said that a lady's maid would have less trouble to button her lady's blouse if the buttoning followed a different parttern - right hand side over left hand side.

I forgot about that. I must say that I found it most convenient. It is all starting to make sense now!

[Jordan Marc]

Oh Lord! not this again. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, sinestra or sinister about being left-handed. Lefties are often associated with being highly creative. The worlds of art and letters, music, and filmmaking are littered with left-handers. It's an attribute, not a detriment. By the way, Cary Grant was a lefty.

Time was if you wrote with your left hand, you would be forced to write with your right hand which often led to stuttering. The reason had to do with the brain sending out messages that were readily understandable to a left-handed child, but confused the neural pathways when a 'well-meaning' teacher insisted the child put a pencil in his off-hand.

Lefties also write in a somewhat peculiar manner, namely with the hand curled downward. Righties pull their penhand across a sheet of paper, which is oriented straight up and down. Lefties push their penhand
upward across the paper, which is oriented sideways. This can lead to trouble. When I was at university,
a professor accused me of cheating on a final exam by letting a classmate seated beside me be able to read my essay. I stood up, put my face in his and raised almighty hell with this academic idiot. Long story short, the two of us ended up in the office of the head of the department, who demanded the professor apologize and give me a top grade.

Should one hand or the other be the determining factor in buttoning a coat? Either will do. But zipping or buttoning a fly, now that's a question that deserves some serious thought.

JMB

[Costi]

I stood up, put my face in his and raised almighty hell with this academic idiot.

JMB, no need to take it personally this time Nobody is condemning lefties - only venturing in speculation based on what was for so long engrained in the collective mind (like so many other preconceived ideas and cliches, many of which persist).

[marcelo]

Though most men do not carry a gun (or so I believe)[...]

...while stairs have no "sex", garments do, and not even "unisex" fashions went as far as mixing up the buttoning.

BUT... transgressions do happen. Take a close look at the way Dietrich's waistcoat buttons:


Well, she IS wearing a quintessentially male costume, but she could have opted to invert the buttoning, as she did on most of her other masculine cut suits with coat and trousers:


While women behaving and dressing like men has increasingly become an accepted reality in the Western world, the reciprocal to that has not; therefore inverting the buttoning on a male coat remains somewhat of a tabu.

Costi, that's a good point. As you mentioned, in some photos Dietrich (both the real and the fictional ones) have opted for a lady's buttoning on an otherwise male garment.


"Madonna Marlene" photo by Steven Daly / Vanity Fair, Oct. 2002

[shredder]

Here is Colin McDowell's commentary:


Cross Dressing

As this 1935 picture of Katharine Hepburn proves, a male jacket and trousers on a woman is one of the sexiest looks around. Chanel always borrowed her lovers' sweaters and sports coats, and any man who has ever been deeply, madly, physically in love with a woman knows the sexual thrill of seeing her wearing an item of his kit, even if it is just his old school cricket sweater.
There is nothing new about cross-dressing. Travesty, as it is correctly called, goes back to before the 17th century. But whereas men in women's dress alarmed church and state, women wearing men's dress were seen as merely having the impertinence of an inferior sex.
The high-minded Victorians found male impersonation rather worrying, while loving the frisson of saucy music-hall stars who, dressed in men's clothes, had much more freedom to sing songs laden with naughty double entendres. The showbiz tradition grew with Hollywood movie stars such as Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland and even Julie Andrews doing some of their most impressive work looking glamorous in top hat and tails.
And it is true that men's clothing on women never goes out of fashion. Most designers love the androgyny of oversize - which is what normally happens when women borrow bits out of men's wardrobes - but it isn't just top designers who can do this. Any woman in love can nick something from her man and look terrific in it. Just one caveat, though: if you are larger than he is, resist. The look is Artful Dodger cheeky, not Billy Bunter squeezed.

source: http://www.colinmcdowell.com.

[Costi]

witty commentary.

What about Georges Sand, another famous cross-dresser:


(the second image is a caricature, but it is realistic if compared to the portrait above it and the descriptions of Balzac, Baudelaire & others)

[dopey]

Here is Colin McDowell's commentary:


Cross Dressing

As this 1935 picture of Katharine Hepburn proves, a male jacket and trousers on a woman is one of the sexiest looks around. Chanel always borrowed her lovers' sweaters and sports coats, and any man who has ever been deeply, madly, physically in love with a woman knows the sexual thrill of seeing her wearing an item of his kit, even if it is just his old school cricket sweater. . . .

source: http://www.colinmcdowell.com.

Richard Anderson's book, Bespoke: Savile Row Ripped and Smoothed, has an interesting anecdote about Katherine Hepburn and her affection for male trousers. As described in the book, she liked her trousers about three sizes too wide "so they billowed like ship's sails when she walked." It seemed she wasn't trying to look like she was wearing her boyfriend's clothes so much as she was conscious of the effect the movement of cloth would have as she moved. This extra volume seemed to be a constant fight with Richard Lakey, the then trouser cutter at Huntsman. In the nice coda, Ms. Hepburn asked the cutter to model for her a cashmere sweater intended for a cousin, since they were about the same size. She went to the front of the shop, purchased it, and then had it sent back to Lakey with the message "from 'Katie'".

[shredder]

But zipping or buttoning a fly, now that's a question that deserves some serious thought.

JMB

I suppose that 'the semiotics of male trousers closure' has a potential for a new thread. I must admit that I have not given Mapplethorpe's work much thought since I was a student. Did the hand belong to a second chap? Or, was there a hand at all? It's all a bit fuzzy now, as I am not even certain that I was sober at the time...

[garu]

Garu, thanks for this. I am sorry to learn you were indisposed, but glad to know you feel better. Being ambidextrous is a virtue. Can you really sign your name with either hand?

Marcelo, absolutely - equally well. Well, perhaps "equally badly" is more accurate. My mother has condemned my handwriting as looking as if a chicken had jumped into an inkwell before scratching its way across the page. Regardless of how it looks, I do agree that being ambidextrous is a virtue. (It certainly can be entertaining: one of my favorite tricks is to start writing a sentence with one hand, then to start writing a different sentence with the other hand before the first hand is finished.)

Thanks for your best wishes (you, too, Costi!).

Cheers,
garu

[marcelo]

Most rules have an exception. But I was pretty sure the way a man closes his coat (or waistcoat, shirt, etc.) was well established and would not admit of exceptions. Well, further research shows that Orthodox Jews adopt the opposite rule. The garment at issue here is called "Rekel". I wonder if there is some explanation for this. Any thoughts?







I have tried to post this image too, but it seems to be too large: http://artintifada.files.wordpress.com/ ... rael_2.jpg

[dopey]

I will probably get this wrong, but I have been told that certain mystically oriented Jewish sects button right over left (rather than the conventional left over right) because the right side represents the kindness (chesed) and the left side represents the judgment (gevura not a precise translation) manifestation of God. In that sense, the buttoning represents a plea that kindness take precedence over judgment.

While the coats in the photo were cut to button right over left, I have seen young men wearing conventionally cut coats and turning the right quarter over and buttoning it in reverse so it buttons over the left quarter.