Jiangwen Liu

Give-Up-Beauty at the workplace by Young Chinese Female Corporate workers

This research investigates an ongoing Chinese digital phenomenon #DisgustOfficeOutfit began in 2022, where post-2000s female office workers wear comfort driven outfits in the workplace. It utilize phenomenology from fashion studies, and conducts a gender affective study on everyday female office outfit. This paper is situated in twentieth century Chinese cultural-historical background and contemporary social disciplinary structures which explores post-2000 women’s ideology behind the unconventional office dressing phenomenon. This paper applies archival research and visual analysis methods to newspapers, magazine articles and personal archive from late twentieth onwards in order to unpack Chinese historical-cultural value inheritance. Digital ethnography was applied to compare gendered differences in social media content. This research highlights how negative emotions impact the dressing, deriving from fashion affective study, embodied ethnography and autoethnographic sources.