Every now and then I feel compelled to respond to an article that addresses professorial attire. Last year, I responded to a piece from The Chronicle of Higher Education. Today, I am pointing out a few passages from Madison Moore's April 19, 2018, Lit Hub post. The title of her essay is "WHY IS CARING ABOUT FASHION CONSIDERED UNSERIOUS?" As your resident fashion blogger here, I must state that, for me, caring about fashion is serious business.
Let me give you an anecdote to set the stage. When I was a single-digit-old little human, I decided I wanted to be a fashion designer. Oh, yes. I had my own set of Fashion Plates. I dressed and undressed my Barbies so that they could have different clothes to wear. Every year I watched all of the pageants: Miss America, Miss Universe, you name it, and I was not only watching them, but also designing evening wear for the contestants. At some point in my later childhood, I realized that the great designers in the world were predominantly old white guys, and I thought, well, that's not me, so I guess I had better give up on fashion as a career.
That said, I did not give up on fashion as a way of life. Thanks to my mom, I subscribed to fashion magazines and poured over those pages with delight. I even replicated many of these fashions in my day-to-day wear. I was not "popular" in school, so oftentimes my version of haute couture became the subject of ridicule. Did that stop me from wearing my awesome clothes? Nope.
As I eventually found my way to teaching, first as a graduate teaching associate, I became more aware of being on a kind of stage--not a runway, but a stage; not an actual stage, but a metaphorical one. I was playing my part. Students were watching me for hours each week. "Aha!" I thought. This is where I can have fun with fashion in my career. I'm not ever going to be on Project Runway or selling clothes in my own shop, but I can keep that creative joy I receive from conceiving an outfit as a part of my daily life. Heck, I could even do research on fashion, or teach a course on it, if I want to, but for now, I settle on just trying to be "fashionable." I do this for myself, and no one else. OK, well I do enjoy those "I love your boots" compliments. Not gonna lie!
You might be thinking, um, you're getting off topic here. Let me assure you, reader, I am not. I am making my way to a point from Moore's article:
Are academics--i.e., professors--really the "worst-dressed middle-class occupational group in the United States"? I say "no!"
Have academics "been trained to associate an interest in surfaces with frivolity, inappropriate to their practices of close reading, deep interpretation, and analysis, all tools that aim to dig beneath the surface"? I hope not! If I care about how my pants complement my shirt, does that mean that I am frivolous or that I somehow cannot analyze a sonnet while wearing a pair of awesome bronze booties? Um, no.
So why is there this stigma? It's time to return to Moore's essay:
Fashion is deemed "superficial" or lacking "interiority." Oh, and maybe it says something about our acceptance of a commercial, even capitalistic world. Well, then. That might be one way of looking at it. Here's another: attention to fashion represents creativity and personal expression. It is a form of identity presentation. That, in my opinion, is neither superficial nor lacking interiority. It shows an understanding of performativity (hey, there, performance studies ppl) and one's physical/visual role in any social situation.
Teaching is definitely one of those situations. Giving a presentation of any kind is one of those situations. Being interviewed is one of those situations. Remember this the next time you look in the closet, open those drawers, go to Goodwill, or peruse the sale rack at TJ Maxx. Think about how your clothes can represent you and all your wonderful quirks and style.
To close, I leave you with Moore's last paragraph. Enjoy!
