Facing Sartorial Critique

Draft:

Composition:
clear lucite beaded necklace (Kohl's)
white and yellow striped tee (Gap)
medium wash skinnies (American Eagle via sister's closet)
sneakers (Converse Chuck Taylor)
staring down at the ground pose (learned) : )

Usage:
My casual dressing experiment and my refusal to acknowledge the onset of fall continued on Friday, this time with the assistance of some new skinnies borrowed from my sister and a necklace that dresses up a tee and jeans ensemble and makes it feel more "me."  I noticed last week that I've been wearing bold (if not "statement") necklaces almost every day-- this seems to be a phase I go through every couple of months.  Right now, a look feels more like a "look" when I add a necklace. 

I wore this ensemble to campus for a lecture, and I barely made it inside the building without having its casual register brought to my attention.  I ran into a friend and classmate of mine, who followed up his "Hey!" with "dressed down Friday, eh?"  This reminded me that I'd agreed to address Maggie's comment on my post from last week about using "dressed up" attire as a way to assert my authority.  She wrote, "Liz--one of the unsaid things here in your post--and this blog--is the idea that you _should_ dress professionally. This is something that I struggle with because I do believe you have to dress appropriately, but I know a lot of our colleagues and even professors seem to see it as a ruse or something."  After sharing some personal experiences, Maggie concluded her thoughts by asking,  "I wonder if you--or the other bloggers--ever feel some tension with peers and/or profs who DON'T dress professionally?"  Other comments on the same post (which I encourage you all to read) also gestured toward the same line of questioning.

First, I'd like to clarify that I try to avoid thinking and speaking in "shoulds."  If my post gave the impression that I think people should dress according to societal norms of what constitutes "professional," I apologize.  I was just trying to talk about my own relationship to "professional" dressing.  Maggie certainly sensed, though, that I do wish more people were willing to acknowledge that how you dress your body matters.  In our About the Blog page, we quote Tim Gunn, who has said "I believe in the semiotics of clothes: the clothes we wear send a message about how we're perceived.  Accordingly, it's important that we each accept responsibility for how we present ourselves to the world."  I'd like to invite you all to take a look at that page, especially those of you who are newer readers of the blog, because that's where we've tried to explain what we imagine as the purpose of our blog.  I'd also like to encourage you to visit (or re-visit) my Henry James Textual Analysis post, in which I wrote a little bit more about my own conception of how and why language matters as a parallel to how and why dressing matters.

To answer the second part of Maggie's question, I have felt some tension with peers regarding my decision to dress "up" regularly.  Some of my classmates are responsive to my explanations about it, and quite a few have actually begun reading the blog and talking to me about it in real life, which is rewarding enough to make it easy to ignore the critics, even though a few of them remain.  I've been fortunate enough that I haven't (yet) felt this kind of tension with professors, but I expect that at some point, that situation will arise.  I read other academic fashion blogs regularly enough to know that in other universities, disciplines, and geographies this kind of tension is quite pervasive.  Our department is fortunate to have quite a few female professors who cultivate a professional, put-together, stylish presentation of self.   Their personal styles cover a broad range of approaches to dressing, but when I look at each of them, I can see that they've put thought into how they dressed themselves each day.  Many of these women are also doing highly influential work in their fields.  I can't help but think that these female professors have begun to carve out a space of possibility wherein someone like me, who takes an interest clothes, is still taken seriously. 

I know these misconceptions-- that dressing well is just a "ruse" and that a woman can't be interested in style and do serious, thoughtful, meaningful intellectual work, too-- still exist.  When given an opportunity to discuss these misconceptions with people who hold them, I believe I am capable of making a good argument against them.  I realize, though, that not everyone who thinks my interest in clothes is vapid will be willing to give me a chance to discuss it.  Because of this, the best way I know to break down these misconceptions is to prove them to be false every single day.  I like to think that by continuing to dress with intention while also doing good work in my studies, I am slowly convincing those skeptics with whom I interact that it is possible to be serious about academics and about clothes.  Furthermore, I hope that my participation in this community of scholarly style blogs gives confidence to those women who share my interest in clothes but do not get to share my surroundings, and thus face more criticism for how they choose to dress.  I'm regularly encouraged by reading the thoughts of others who share my opinion on the subject, and it reinforces my sense that it's important to continue working toward deconstructing these misconceptions.

Thanks for the comments, Maggie!  I hope I've answered your questions.

Prompts:

• Do you ever find yourself relying on a single type of accessory to "finish" a look?  I do this all the time with belts, as I've mentioned before, but now I'm starting to do it with necklaces, as well, so I wonder if it's a common habit.
• What are your thoughts on the similarity we draw here on our blog between the importance of using language well and the importance of dressing well?
• Have you found successful ways to manage tension you've encountered regarding your own interest in clothes?  Please share!!