left or right

[Nanook]

I don't know about Victorian buttons, but even in Japanese culture the men cross clothing left over right (kimono, gi, etc.), and women right over left, just as in Western culture. I don't know why, it's just the way it is.

I refer the interested reader to the 8th century Taihô-Yoro code. The code demanded that all robes, following the Chinese custom, should be crossed left over right. The custom of some robes being worn right over left, I think, is no earlier than the Meiji era and in direct influence of an internalization (a Japanese trait) of European style.