Lefty ladies

All women are lefties

One would expect marketers of any reasonable savviness to find out what best fits their customers' needs and then target the largest possible set of people with the product so designed. No?

No.

Garment manufacturers believe either that women are mostly lefthanded, or that they get someone else to do their buttons for them.

I've had a so-called designer tell me that women's clothes are supposed to close left-handed. I did take the time to explain to the so-called designer that such designs made sense a couple of hundred years ago in the UK, where ladies' maids stuffed ladies into their clothes. See, if you are part of the right-handed majority, you can more conveniently button up someone else if their clothes close left-handed to them.

But for those of us who are neither left-handed nor have maids to do up our buttons and zips for us, it's a stupid design.

At least the zips are mostly centred these days. Some so-called high-fashion trousers come with the zip on the left with a hook that fastens to the back.

Okay, let me amend my initial statement, so: Garment manufacturers believe either that women are mostly lefthanded, or that they get someone else to do their buttons for them, or they are natural contortionists. Even women who wear XXXL sizes.

Supersistence. Sigh.

Oh well, the lefties among women at least find readymade clothes an easy buy. And the number of retailers who sell clothes suitable for righty women is increasing.

Random list of left-handed and right-handed readymade clothing retailers in India:

Righties: Vibe (they've been steadily sensible, leading to undying loyalty from me), Benetton, Provogue (some), Mango (some), Esprit (some)

Lefties: Bizarre, Bossini (most), Allen Solly

Persistent standards and the Space Shuttle booster

Here's a link to one of my favourite stories on supersistence.

It's about how the dimensions of the space shuttle boosters are linked, step by backward step, to the size of ancient carts (which were not standardised, by the way, since standardisation is a much later concept).

I like it because it shows how supersistence, well, persists, as does the story, despite Snopes.com sniffing at it.

Still, this is one case where the end result does not impact many people. Many others do.

Intro to Supersistence

I'm often curious about how something got the way it did, or why we do things the way we do. Sometimes, the answer is a delight of new learning. Sometimes, it's just maddening in the extreme. This blog is where I point these out, sometimes gently, sometimes in a rant, and hopefully not very often, sometimes in a rage.

If you have different views or beliefs from those expressed here*, feel free to read on and find another point of view here. I shall attempt to amuse as well as edify. You can expect education as well as entertainment. But if it offends you that someone may have a set of beliefs different from yours, please stop reading right there, and find another blog which is more interesting to you. Life is too short for you to boil over my views, and I certainly don't plan to boil over yours. The Interwebz has billions of pages. Many of them may like to play with you, even if these don't.

On comments: Polite and reasonable comments will get due respect here, and maybe even engagement. Rude, nasty, unreasonable or stupid comments will likely be shot dead, and their smoking carcasses dissected in gory full colour for the delight of people who like to see evil comments die gruesomely on the Internet. Or I may just vanish them utterly. It depends on my opinion of the comment. Only mine.

*Only some of my opinions will see the light of a screen on this blog. Others of my thoughts will find their way to other locations, and some sad ones will never see a data packet in my lifetime. Be aware that this blog is just a subset of my views, and be careful in extrapolating the posts here.

At your own risk then... ONWARD!