A Los Angeles based TV station has received more than 8,000 tweets after one of its female weather presenters was handed a grey cardigan to cover her dress while she was on air.
A broadcast by Liberte Chan on Saturday was interrupted by KTLA 5 news anchor Chris Burrous, who passed her a grey cardigan and said: "We are getting a lot of emails".
Chan put on the sweater and completed her weather report.
Personal Thoughts on the LBD/Sweater Moment that went Viral @KTLAMorningNews https://t.co/NVRhXzTmfS pic.twitter.com/uCgE5HNEUu
— Liberté Chan (@libertechan) May 16, 2016
After the cover up, Chan took to social media to say she had changed from another black and white dress because the pattern on this dress clashed with the “green screen”, on to which graphics for the broadcast are projected.
Many of the tweets to the station since the incident, using hashtags #righttobarearms #IstandwithLiberteChan and #sweatergate, supported Chan’s choice of dress and criticised the decision to hand her the cardigan.
RTÉ presenter and broadcast meteorologist Siobhan Ryan said on Monday the handing of the cardigan to Chan was "slightly degrading" and "a little bit misogynistic".
She told 2FM's Nicky Byrne Show the dress worn by Chan was classy but admitted she would probably not wear it while doing the weather.
Chan later posted a video to her Facebook page of her and her colleagues reading out emails sent to the station in relation to the dress.
According to Chan, one of the emails said: “Liberte Chan’s dress is totally inappropriate for a Saturday morning news... looks like she didn’t make it home from her cocktail party last night.”
In the video, Chan responds and says: “Can we talk about my weather performance? ... I don’t know why everyone’s hating? I don’t know what to tell you. You know, it’s a black dress. I’m sorry if I was inappropriate.”
In a second post on her Facebook page Chan said she had worked “on air for 10 years and by now I’ve learned that everyone has an opinion and you have to have a thick skin to work in this business. It’s a visual medium and sometimes your outfit works and sometimes it doesn’t.
“During the 8am hour, my co-anchor came over and handed me a sweater and said, ‘we’re getting a lot of emails’. I was surprised since I hadn’t seen any of the emails and didn’t think there was anything that inappropriate (the beads/sequins were probably a little much for the morning, but what girl doesn’t like something that sparkles?!), so I played along and put on the sweater,” she wrote.
“For the record, I was not ordered by KTLA to put on the sweater. I was simply playing along with my co-anchor’s joke, and if you’ve ever watched the morning show, you know we poke fun at each other all the time.
“And, also for the record, there is no controversy at KTLA. My bosses did not order me to put on the cardigan, it was a spontaneous moment... I truly love my job, I like my bosses and enjoy working with my co-workers.”
The incident comes days after a controversy in Britain in which where Nicola Thorp, who was due to take on a temp role with PwC, claimed she was sent home from her job after refusing to wear heels at work.
Ms Thorp has set up a petition, which to date has been signed by, 100,000 people, asking for it to be made illegal for companies to require women to wear heels for their jobs.
The company Ms Thorp works for has since changed its dress code to make it clear that flat shoes are allowed for women.