Q: An associate of mine recently purchased a leather jacket. Afterward he had difficulty unzipping it and taking it off. Upon closer inspection, we found that the zipper tab was on the left side rather than the right. I am under the impression that a left-side zipper tab denotes a female-style jacket. The sales clerk assured my associate that it was a men’s jacket. Could you please clear up this debate for us? Thanks for your assistance.

A: A quick survey of the zippered jackets in my closet reveals four with the zipper on the left and two with the zipper on the right. Although I may not be the typical consumer—my collection includes an Hermès, a Gaultier and a classic motorcycle jacket—the fact that I have jackets with zipper tabs on both sides leads me to believe that jackets swing both ways. I found the same diversity among my wife’s jackets, some lefty, some righty. I can’t discover any logic to zipper sidedness. It doesn’t seem to be about nationality. The only consistent gender logic in garment closing seems to be which side the buttons are on. Traditionally, men’s buttons are on the right and women’s are on the left. Supposedly, this is because buttons on the left are easier for breast-feeding mommies. If this sounds absurd, consider the legend that Napoleon switched traffic from the left to the right side of the road to make it harder for horsemen approaching from opposite directions to hack at one another with sabers.

July 2003

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