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Left Handed Zippers
Jan. 20th, 2025 09:10 am A couple years ago, I went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out why a lot of military surplus shirts and jackets have zippers on the left hand side instead of the right hand side.
In the United States, there is a rigid unspoken code on zipper placement that seems to be entirely based on which gender the article of clothing is being designed for.
To go along with my previous factoid about duct tape, there are numerous factoids about this differentiation people like to post. Some people say its because of which hand you would salute with when you were a knight. Or because traditionally high-status men dressed themselves, while high-status women had assistants.
But while this gender-based design decision is almost universal in the USA, its followed much less rigidly everywhere else in the world. Googling about left-hand zippers will quickly pull up men who have purchased high-end European winter jackets who are worried they accidentally got a women's size. So there's no way this design is based on old timey stuff, unless Europeans had some sort of fashion reformation regarding zipper placement and didn't record the decision anywhere.
What is certain is that it doesn't matter much which side the zipper is on, they seem to work equally well and require the same level of hand dexterity. I am in possession of hoodies, shirts, sweaters, and jackets of both kinds and I don't even notice the difference unless I'm thinking about it.
In the United States, there is a rigid unspoken code on zipper placement that seems to be entirely based on which gender the article of clothing is being designed for.
To go along with my previous factoid about duct tape, there are numerous factoids about this differentiation people like to post. Some people say its because of which hand you would salute with when you were a knight. Or because traditionally high-status men dressed themselves, while high-status women had assistants.
But while this gender-based design decision is almost universal in the USA, its followed much less rigidly everywhere else in the world. Googling about left-hand zippers will quickly pull up men who have purchased high-end European winter jackets who are worried they accidentally got a women's size. So there's no way this design is based on old timey stuff, unless Europeans had some sort of fashion reformation regarding zipper placement and didn't record the decision anywhere.
What is certain is that it doesn't matter much which side the zipper is on, they seem to work equally well and require the same level of hand dexterity. I am in possession of hoodies, shirts, sweaters, and jackets of both kinds and I don't even notice the difference unless I'm thinking about it.
