Culture

Analyzing Dress, Identity, and Beauty Beliefs and Practices of East and Southeast Asian Mothers and Daughters Shared Through Matrilineal Inheritance

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Abstract

Existing scholarship across communication, anthropology, human development, and family studies has examined how beauty, body image, and self-esteem beliefs are transmitted between mothers and daughters. Fashion and apparel research further positions dress, beauty, and identity as communicative practices embedded in social relationships. However, there remains a significant gap in recent scholarship that centers on East and Southeast Asian mother-daughter relationships, particularly through the intersecting lenses of culture, migration, and social class. Moreso, these dynamics have rarely been examined explicitly within fashion, apparel, and beauty studies. Guided by the concepts of dress and identity and by Family Systems Theory, this qualitative study addresses this gap by exploring matrilineal inheritance as both material and non-material transmission of dress, beauty beliefs, and identity practices. Using in-depth interviews, photo-voice, and video documentary methods, preliminary findings reveal how cultural preservation, migration, and shifting beauty standards shape intergenerational influence from girlhood through womanhood among mothers and daughters. 

Keywords: Southeast Asian Women, East Asian Women, Dress and Identity, Beauty, Matrilineal Inheritance, Family Systems Theory, Fashion and Clothing, Cultural Memory

How to Cite:

Robertson, C. M. & Kopot, C., (2025) “Analyzing Dress, Identity, and Beauty Beliefs and Practices of East and Southeast Asian Mothers and Daughters Shared Through Matrilineal Inheritance”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 82(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.22064