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[zharkov]

Wow! I didn't expect to get so much hostility to "fashion."

This is about aesthetics. Is not an educated person one who has an appreciation not only for the life of the mind but for the material world? I refuse to choose between these two.

I dress like Jackson Pollack.

Seriously, I don't think the issue is that academics lack an aesthetic sense, it is that they have a different aesthetic sense than you do.

[prytania3]

"I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes."

Who is Henry David Thoreau?

[bewilderedta]

I suppose it might also be good to consider that academics tend not to make boatloads of cash. Fashion isn't cheap (and neither are books). I think looking professional on the cheap is quite possible, but to compare academic fashion to business fashion (as the article lilipad linked does) seems unfair.

As far as judging the quality of one's professors by their dress? Er, bad idea.

[camera]

I have to say, I put a great amount of effort into my fashion choices. I have more clothes, shoes and bags than most people outside of Hollywood, and I spend more money than I care to admit on clothes each year.  But I really don't care how others dress -- I'm way to self-absorbed. I just collect clothes and accessories like others collect Hummel figurines.

BTW, the comment - "Honestly, the few fashion obsessed people I know seem to be doing it to hide self-esteem problems" -- is somewhat irritating. I always thought it was ridiculous to use "low self-esteem" as an insult - I don't find it insulting at all. I definitely have low self-esteem, but so what?  I turn it into self-depracating humor rather than "hiding" it behind fashion. Maybe I do have low self-esteem, but I can think of worse things -- like being a a-hole, for one (not directing this at you GG).

[contemporary_]

After a years in another profession and learning to dress, I am appalled at academic dress standard.

I found it a relief.

I am in a school where one of the fields of study is aesthetics.

You speak of beauty, yet seem to know nothing of the sublime.  Perhaps you might learn something of what you speak, as a field of study.

You wouldn't know it by looking that any cares one bit about clothing as a culturally significant art form.

Many people so not, and while cultural studies and the arts are intertwined, your preoccupation with the transitory ripples and eddys of capital in the form of (your own) clothing suggests you are far more concerned with taste, than aesthetics.

The male professors are disheveled and the women look like they shop at the Salvation Army store. It's hard to take some of these people seriously when they have not looked in the mirror in about 20 years. That's just the professors. The students are even worse. Thirty year olds that look like they are living in a frat house.  No wonder the general public thinks that academics are out of touch. What's up?

Despite your preoccupation with looking good, your eye is blind to the codes of your environment.

In the meantime, I am wearing my fashion forward but classic clothes and continually getting positive comments.

From whom, administrators?

I am not flashy or distracting, just put together like I hope my mind is.

Does anybody agree?

If you are in an aesthetically oriented discipline, I would hazard a guess that you are making enemies.  Not that you deserve them for your dress, but your derisive attitude towards your environment and your lack of sensitivity to a hierarchy of aesthetic and scholarly practices will show in more than your appearance.

Hi Camera,
Do you spend a similar amount of money collecting books and catalogues?

[camera]

[/quote]

Hi Camera,
Do you spend a similar amount of money collecting books and catalogues?
[/quote]

Even more!! which leads me to my growing debt :)

[aandsdean]

I must be suffering from a more sensitive eye. There may also be some gender issues wrapped up in this conversation.

No, you're not quite that precious; and yes, there are. And a vast body of literature about it. Check out key terms like adornment, dress, the body and culture, material culture, writing the body, playing/acting/performing gender.

Two good places to start are with Judith Butler and Nancy Chodorow.

Grassy, I think it would be better to recommend people who are readable "to start with."  This is like starting your golf career by having a friendly bet with Tiger Woods.

aands, who oscillates between custom suits and shirts, and blue jeans and sweatshirts, depending on the day.

[contemporary_]

Classic text:  Irving Goffman, The Performance of Self in Everyday Life.

[punchnpie]

I'd like to ask forumites if they think students should 'dress up' for presentations. This is the first year I've had classes (grad level) give presentations which count as a major portion of their grade. When I was in grad school (a year ago, so we're not talking about the dark ages here), students tried to wear a nice outfit for their presentations, not a suit, but a couple of notches up from their usual wear. I also dressed a little better the day the students gave their presentations, I guess as a measure of respect for the event and the effort the students were making.

Before grad school, I worked in a field that required a suit everyday and I'm glad not to have to wear one now, but I guess I still expect people to put some effort into their dress for special occasions. Should I ask students to dress next year? I am in a professional program and students will have to give presentations and deal with the public the rest of their professional lives. Am I asking too much if I ask them to dress professionally next time around or is it not worth bothering about?

[grasshopper]

Two good places to start are with Judith Butler and Nancy Chodorow.

Grassy, I think it would be better to recommend people who are readable "to start with."  This is like starting your golf career by having a friendly bet with Tiger Woods.
[/quote]

What? You're saying you find Butler dense? heh.

Am I asking too much if I ask them to dress professionally next time around or is it not worth bothering about?

I don't think you're asking too much. An old college chum did her MA at a school where part of their presentation grade in a required seminar course was based on their presentation of themselves. They weren't graded on the fashionability of their clothing, of course, but on how well they presented themselves overall: dressing professionally, articulating well, standing up straight, looking their colleagues in the eye instead of crouching over their paper, etc... This was only a small part of the grade (I can't remember exactly how much, but I think something like 10 or 20%), but it was enough to impress upon students how important presentation is.

The PhD students there are also required to present their doctoral research at a public lecture that is held off campus and advertised to the public at large. The student has to present the research in language that is comprehensible to people outside the field of study, and indeed, outside of academia altogether.

It's all part of an effort to make their students aware of their audiences. And they want their students to get jobs. How many ABD applicants have search committees seen that have no idea how to dress for a professional interview, and have never been taught how to speak to a general audience?

[daurousseau]

Does anybody agree?

I agreely that you should dress nicely. It will be a pleasure to see you walking around the campus.

As for the others, well, that's academia for you. And the higher up the tree you get, the stranger are the fauna. When I was a grad student, I was assigned to TA for the visiting professor of philosophy from France. This famous existentialist was a little bird-like man who dressed in greasy black suits to highlight his winter storm of dandruff.

But I'm sure Goedel would have been even more fun. At least from the description in Janna Levin's A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines. Turing was highly individual in his personal turnout as well.

Then there's the people in pure math.

[amazona2]

Contemporary:

What's with the attitude? Very hostile regarding "transitory ripples and eddys of capital." To be human means to live in "transitory ripples." The Cartesian view of the world is over. 

I am not preoccupied. I doing fine in my environment AND I have written extensively about the sublime. My post was written to provoke reflection on academic culture.

I guess it worked.

Camera: I am with you " low self-esteem" is a ridiculous insult. I can be argued that people who do not care about their personal sense of beauty have low self-esteem. It's a bogus insult.

[contemporary_]

Contemporary:

What's with the attitude? Very hostile regarding "transitory ripples and eddys of capital." 

It is fashion forward, yet classic.

The tone you used to describe your environment was hostile and condescending.  There is nothing hostile about recognizing the ephemeral nature of clothing as an object.  That you are looking down on your environment instead of across through an awareness of difference is problematic.

I see this below as lacking in your approach to this subject.

This is about having regard, appreciation, and respect for the material world and others.

I fail to see how your fashion forward classics and this thread as a whole reflect regard, appreciation or respect for the material world and others.  In fact, you are modeling the opposite.  If this thread were about the wisdom of regular bathing and hygiene, respect for others might be a factor.

The_scene has raised most of the familiar points in this discussion.  A disregard for 'up-to-date' fashions not only reflects aesthetic and cultural values, one might argue that at times it reflects a politic or ethic that recognizes the destructive nature of the clothing industry as the planet's most gross polluter (both dyes and pesticides, even worse than agriculture) and tireless exploiter of marginalized workers.

That you even bother to introduce and exclude Paris Hilton as a 'fashionista', instead of an authentic arbiter of fashionable tastes like Carine Roitfeld or Anna Wintour, speaks volumes.  For someone with an eye that is so 'sensitive' or subtle, your example is remarkably gross, nay, vulgar.

This said, I do dress attentively and agree with Grassy on the matter of dressing for presentations.  I would never be so narrow as to assume that the cultural values that influence my choices should be the norm of a world newly entered.

Believe it or not, some academics do shop thrift for their clothing.  That is what they can, or choose to, afford.  Some don't make time to iron because they work very hard or prioritize according to other values.  I doubt either type would bother to respond to this thread. 

I do find it amusing that you are responding to me, instead of those fora deities who have labeled you a vendor of warts.  You have also attracted the terse and unsupportive attention of someone who teaches in a suit.  Perhaps you might consider the informed aesthetic judgments present in this textual reality.

[margarete]

I do shop at the Salvation Army store (well, Goodwill, actually).  I got a Ralph Lauren sweater there for $5 last week.

I'm a grad student, I don't have a lot of money.  I look presentable, and when I have seminar I dress professionally.  But I don't have the means or the inclination to spend a lot of money or time on my personal appearance, and I'm thankful that I am at a place where I am not judged badly because of that.  I prefer to spend my money on books rather than expensive clothes and my time sleeping rather than putting on makeup.  I don't mind if other people's priorities are different, but I do resent being expected to be "fashion forward."

[grasshopper]

I do shop at the Salvation Army store (well, Goodwill, actually).  I got a Ralph Lauren sweater there for $5 last week.

There is a strong and growing movement against buying new whenever possible, in an attempt to curtail the environmental impact of a consumer culture. These people, from a range of income brackets, buy  used as much as they can. It's a consumer style that is often adopted by environmentalists and ecofeminists.