Academic fashions

And everyone knows how well economists dress. Yeah, I’m in for this.

Funny, I was just thinking about a quiz show where philosophers competed with Joe Schmoe in resolving various hypothetical moral dilemmas and defending them, with the audience voting on who’s solution + defense they thought was best.

Not that it’s a good idea, of course….

Come to Debbie’s wedding Henry. I’ll wear my cool ass Beige suit with the black pin-sripe shirt and loud tie. It makes me feel like a Goodfella. I wanted to wear it at the one in January, but that turned out to be black tie (and I still maintain I had one of the best Tux’s there, as far as Tuxedoes can vary from one to t’other.)

EngLit academics vary in their dress sense according to age and specialisation. As a c-18-er, I suppose I’m expected to head off towards the world of shabby genteel once I give in and look for a teaching job. (Think Tom Paulin, representing for the dix-huit via Hazlitt.) Or pinstripes. Moderns get away with ‘gay or eurotrash’ roll-necks and velvet jackets, which means that they wouldn’t need a queer eye; Victorian types tend to like their frills; anything pre-renaissance, though, and it can be a toss up between grammar-school student/professor and charity shop doyenne. (dsquared can back me up on this, I hope: does the green corduroy-yellow sweater combo ring a bell?)

All of these are, of course, hideous generalisations, and dependent upon Oxford-style periodisation rather than Cambridge-style theme specialisation. Still, I’m no judge on what Germaine Greer wears.

Historians seem to do better. Possibly because they make more money from their books. And get the TV tie-ins with the complimentary wardrobe. David Starkey has the advantage of all that, and of having a gay man’s dress sense. (I know, I know, terrible cliché.) And Simon Schama looks pretty dapper most of the time.

Actually, there’s your show: David Starkey’s Academic Makeover. ‘And this week, Harold Bloom: just how long have you been wearing that jumper?’

The funny thing is, social-science academics are the well-dressed ones on campus. Wander into a physical science department, and you’ll see much worse than ill-fitting blue suits.

Several years back, Physics Today ran one of its periodic soul-searching articles about what’s wrong with physics as a profession, and asked a whole bunch of people to suggest why it was hard to attract students. One of the answers was, basically, “Look at how you people dress! Nobody wants to be part of that…”

“I can think of more than a few women who can use the help — the problems are a little more diverse than in the case of the men, but they are still urgent problems.”

Yes. Women have more options, which means we also have more opportunities to get it all wrong. On the other hand, there is an entire industry devoted to women’s makeup and fashion. From the drugstore to the grocery checkout, the sources of advice are everywhere, and they are hard to ignore.

So I do think men need more help.

A couple of hints for male social scientists:

Lose the polyblend trousers.

Blue suits are for court appearances (as a defendant).

Silk ties are not more expensive than polyester, and the difference in quality is far greater than the difference in price.

Outside of the academy, the unhappy compromise known as the “short-sleeved dress shirt” is considered an oxymoron.

Laura:

I hear from a reliable source that, at their disciplinary meetings, economists and political science people are most dressy, the anthropologists are the least dressy, and the sociologists are in the middle.

I think you’re on to something: I just spent far too much money for a simple pair of pants and a new sport coat for a meeting this month, at which point my biologist-ecologist wife proposed that formality of dress decreases with the possibility that one might work outdoors . It’s quite common for ecologists to wear shorts and t-shirts to their annual meetings (prestige comes from the t-shirt’s logo, of course: Is it from an exotic research station?), but lab-bound biologists are still decked out in suits. Anthropologists at least have a good possibility of seeing the sun in the course of their work; sociologists, well, maybe through the window or while doing field work; economists and political scientists — I don’t know, do they have windows?

Physicists (and mathematicians?), of course, hoe their own row, as Chad pointed out.

In biology, dress sense seems to vary by field and correlate with funding. In my experience, well-funded biomedical types (molecular oncology, immuno, etc.) tend to dress considerably better than their less well-funded molecular genetics/cell bio peers. And, of course, Howard Hughes grant recipients are the best-dressed.

Political scientists are wearing suits these days? The men used to wear khaki pants (a bit too short, and a bit too tight around the waist), a blue shirt, a navy blazer, and an ugly tie. And comfy shoes, like Hush Puppies or Wallabies or something. But I haven’t gone to APSA (or been in academia–so I like the Ph.D. Island show a LOT) in more than ten years, so maybe they’re wearing suits now.

I laughed out loud at the short-sleeved shirts comment, too.

I’m a little late to this one, but most of the people at the conference I was just at were dressed pretty well I thought. (Present company excepted, but then I dressed badly even when I was in law school, so this is hardly attributable to my being an academic.) Maybe because this was a summer conference (so no job market) full of young people, but it certainly wasn’t the fashion disaster that some people may think covers all of academia.