Peer Feedback in Aesthetic Labour: Forms, Logics and Responses

Abstract

Research on aesthetic labour has largely been confined to studying practices and experiences of managerial control and self-discipline. However, co-workers also have an impact on the experiences and practices of aesthetic labour. This article explores peer feedback regarding personal aesthetics in work situations without clear organisational aesthetic guidelines. Testimonies of experiences of peer feedback from 28 qualitative wardrobe interviews with ‘frontstage’ and creative workers in insecure employment positions show that peer feedback (1) is often ambiguous both in content and form; (2) can contain both a commercial logic and logics of ‘belonging’; and (3) is not only accepted, but in many cases is seen as legitimate and taken very seriously by workers on the receiving end. This study illustrates how informal processes of control and distinction concerning personal appearance intensify and complicate experiences of aesthetic labour as the interplay between market logics and judgements of taste has the potential to act as a reinforcement of insecurities and inequalities