Somewhere between thespringandfall 2024seasons,Sandy Liangs customer traded in her sheer lace babydoll dresses for matching skirt suits.
But are we in on the joke, or the butt of it?
Tenderness reigned supreme; women were encouraged to embrace their femininity and sensitivity.
Andrea Edelman/Vogue
Now, it seems that The Girl has grown into a member of the workforce.
Or, at least, a highly stylistic, idealized version of one.
(Think Gisele Bundchens character inThe Devil Wears Prada.)
Sandy Liang spring 2024
But then it expanded beyond social media.
Less than a month later, Kardashian also appeared in aGQeditorialin an office.
This year, the brandThe Elder Statesmanand online luxury retailerSSENSEhave also tapped the corporate aesthetic.
Sandy Liang fall 2024
Celebrities are in on the trend, too.
Bella Hadid took the look for a spin in December 2023.
Sundberg argues that the recent office-wear obsession may just be a further extension of the girlhood trend.
©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
I think that the power suit can easily be the opposite side of the girlhood coin, she says.
People fantasize about reclaiming a very heightened, specific version of childhood.
But there is a huge chasm between girlhood and womanhood.
Gotham
Just because something comes chronologically after girlhood doesn’t mean that that necessarily represents womanhood, Alioto says.
Womanhood is more than the absence of girlhood.
Both trends can lean into sexualization, often in a misguided response to power imbalance.
Alioto notes that the trend fails to recognize workplace dynamics.
It is collapsing a ton of hierarchies within an office space.
But you certainly dont need to be a woman in an office to be sexualized professionally.
