Fashioning Manipulation

 I am engaging in what Jess calls Monogomous Dressing, which I do frequently.  I am once again wearing The Most Versatile Dress I've Ever Owned because I wore it last week when I visited my mom in Kansas City and promised myself that that would be the last time I wore it before I got it dry cleaned.  Well, what's one more time? Especially since I'll just be spending my afternoon in the library writing and students aren't exactly known for smelling great.  But that's what the Chanel No. Five is for.

dress - Corey Lynn Calter/Anthro (remixed)

cardi - GAP (giftcarded  & remixed)

tights - Assets/Target

boots - Plenty by Tracy Reese via Piperlime (remixed)

necklace - Urban Outfitters (remixed)

earrings - Anthro (remixed)

scarf and sunglasses - H&M (remixed)

 I'm at least a month overdue for a trim and because I have an important interview and a conference coming up I'm freaking out about the length of my hair again.  In the fall, I contemplated cutting a lot of it off because longer hair makes me look younger and generally connotes youth.  I tend to place a lot of anxiety on my hair because its changeable and I can't change my height, which has the biggest impact about the perception of my age and academic authority upon seeing me (as opposed to conversing with me).  For a few days last week I was convinced that I needed to cut off at least five inches otherwise my paper will not be well received and I will bomb the interview.  Then, Sara linked to a hair-do-how-to and since I saw that I've calmed down a bit and decided that I will continue to keep it long but start experimenting more with ways of putting it up that aren't a haphazard ponytail tuck thingie, i.e. Gym Hair.

Had I not been visiting my mom last Friday I would also have participated in Modly Chic's Friend Friday on Feminism. Many thanks to Katy for her questions and to the participating bloggers who took them on (and also, a congrats to Katy on the DIY publication of her YA novel, Aurora Undefined.) As it's Tuesday, I'm not going to respond to this now, but I was especially delighted to see questions 1 and 4, which were "Do you think there is an incompatibility between feminism and a love for fashion?" and "How is your self-image and the way you carry yourself informed by your beliefs?" All I will say is that there must be some critical navigation and self-introspection when it comes to feminism and fashion, even fashion is a verb and has a DIY quality to it. 

And I liked the other question even better because it cast a wide net about the intersection of fashion and our beliefs, convictions, politics, and ethics and about the place of visible public subjectivit(ies)y.  It's something I think a lot about as an academic and as an instructor, both in terms of research and self-fashioning.  My research into spectatorship and visual culture can also make me hyper aware of how things are "read" by others and how little control we have over reception and perception, hence my apprehension about my height, hair, and age in academic settings.  I think our knowledge of the wide variety of ways in which our appearances can be received actually causes more manipulation and dissembling through fashion than it does "authentic self-expression."  Not that that's necessarily a negative thing.  I wear pearls in the university classroom but have never worn them to teach  ESL (English as as Second Language).  Alternatively, I often forgo wearing a Miraculous Medal, which I wear on a nearly daily basis, in high stakes situations when I am initially meeting others (interviews, conferences, first day of class), but I've never taken it off for ESL.  I would be incredibly naive and self-deceiving if I said that the difference is simply accessorizing preferences from one day and time to the next.

What sartorial or accessorizing choices do you find yourself manipulating?  Do you have a "neutral" outfit that you wear when you want the focus off of yourself? Academics, is there anything you took off or put on for job talks or interviews?

Dressing Like A Feminist?

N.B. *This is in response to the Feminist Fashion Blogger event call that asked, How do you express your feminism in the way you dress?*

The IFC series Portlandia recently depicted the conflict between second-wave radical feminists, who were represented as frumpy flakes, and a young post-feminist or budding third-wave feminist, who wore short denim cut-offs and took pole-dancing classes.  The joke, of course, was about what a feminist was supposed to look like or at least how you know you're looking at a feminist.  You know, in an "indigenous pantsuit."

 I think this dialogue about fashion and feminism that Franca and other FFB members have started is great, especially because there's such a history of gate-keeping about what a feminist does and does not look like.  Must I defend my regular, earnest, and non-ironic wearing of makeup, a miraculous medal, and Anthropologie/Urban Outfitters to be a feminist? What about looking attractive in anything that might be considered target practice for the heterosexual male gaze? Recall, for example, the flack Liz Phair got for wearing only a slip on the cover of Rolling Stone. Her response?  She had self-fashioned with her own slip, something she wore on stage and something that she wore out to dinner.  There is nothing wrong with questioning how we navigate fashion and feminism.  Pointed questions can, in fact, be very good, but the condemnation of fashion choices without productive dialogue assumes that the wearer is just too dumb to understand how she (or he, but it's usually a she) has violated some singular universal code of feminist fashion(ing) ethics.

sweater - Limited via Marshalls (remixed)

arrow skirt - Fei/Anthro via Ebay 

leggings - Fylo (MIL-hand me down & remixed)

Fleur de Lys earrings - gifted (remixed)

scarf - street vendor in Santiago, Spain (remixed)

shades - H&M (remixed)

shoes - J-41 (remixed)

I really do think it is necessary to be acquainted with the wearer to know how exactly she expresses feminism through fashion, because there's no way you can tell I'm a feminist by looking at me. One of the major emphases of this blog is that fashion is a verb and not a noun dictated by someone else; fashion is to self-fashion and part of that is rejecting bizarre expectations about what the female body, especially, should look like.  I chose to photograph this outfit because I know that a women's fashion magazine stylist would never do this:  this skirt, leggings, and shoes on my body type make my legs look stubby and do not lengthen me.  And while I know that rejecting all the ways I could "lengthen" my 5'0" curvy frame is a fucking cardinal sin in their book, it is part of a pathology that I find ridiculous.

SFE's Feminist Style Iconography: Tori Amos, Anne Shirley, and American Girl

I missed out on Feminist Style Icon day, organized by the fabulous Franca of Oranges and Apples, on account of getting that stupid essay out to a journal yesterday as well as the fact that I was wracking my brains trying to figure out who my Feminist Style Icons are.  Franca and LHdM had great ones.  And it was especially hard to think of which feminists influenced me in terms of style as opposed to challenging how I think, act, and interact. This was so difficult for me that I could only think of works of fiction, which I will get to in a minute. But, really, the biggest and most overwhelming influence on me since the age of 12 has been Tori Amos. Perhaps it's cliche, but it's true.

 I remember the exact moment I first heard Tori Amos--I was in the living room of family friends in Ohio and a 10-second clip of her playing "Caught a Lite Sneeze" on the harpsichord came on the TV to advertise for her MTV Unplugged appearance.  It was the Spring of 1996. There was something about the combination of her voice, the orchestration of her music, and that baroque instrument. Boys for Pele is her most difficult album for most listeners, but is and always will be my favorite. Without getting too analytical, it is everything that feminist revisionist art should be.  Not mention that her feminism didn't stop with her music, but also founded RAINN.

 

Both her music and her style combine elements from different periods and they purposefully play with iconography.  Even in her deconstruction there is a playfulness to it. And whenever I lecture on Mary Stuart, I always show this photo, which might be my favorite:

But prior to my sudden enrapture by a single song, my feminist style icons as a girl were Anne of Green Gables and the American Girl characters.  Maybe the young women in these books never actually articulated a feminist stance, but they fought for what they believed in and they didn't reject thinking about social and political conflict.  And I loved Anne's self-fashioning.  She was feisty, intelligent, a competitive student, and an eventual educator, but she still insisted on puffed sleeves and organza should the occasion call for it.

And while I did NOT have a desire to get married or have children when I was a girl or a teenager (again, these were not positive associations for me), I knew if I did, I must find a Gilbert Blythe--a partner whose love for me is rooted in friendship and comedy as much as it is in eros.

Like Katie, I am a military brat and the American Girl books were big on the bases when I was young.  Although I am conflicted about the brand now, I loved and will always love those books.  I credit the narratives of historical fiction through the gaze of single young woman combined with the "Looking Back," section at the end of the books for encouraging my academic interest in history as well as my political commitments. As a girl, I was deeply affected by the "Looking Back" section of Samantha Learns A Lesson, which discussed child labor practices during and after the industrial revolution.  For some of us, the books that force us to attend to issues of capitalism, labor, and social justice are the works of Dickens; for me I needed to see Samantha's boots, jackets, and sailor suit along with them. 

 

SFE channels her childhood and styles it up for a Volunteer Appreciation party

dress - Anthro/Girls from Savoy (remixed)

cardi - GAP (remixed)

gold glass earrings - Anthro (remixed)

floret necklace - gifted/MIL (remixed)

navy tights - LOFT (remixed)

gold shoes - Steve Madden

And I knew the moment I first saw it that I loved the cut and print of the Twinkle Twinkle dress because of Molly McIntire's Miss Victory costume from Changes for Molly. It was the vintage '40s cut plus the stars that had me at hello. What do you think?

Or, am I the only one who sees it? What about you?  Any feminist style icons from fiction?

Paring Down: Case Study #2

top - Deletta/Anthro (eBayed)
cami - Banana Republic (remixed)
trousers - Talbots (remixed)
scarf - Gap (remixed)
Fleur de Lys earrings - ? (gifted--thanks Biscuit!)
boots - LOFT (remixed)

Last week I blogged about some recent efforts to pare down. In doing so, I parted with a skirt I loved to look at but didn't fit my body or my wardrobe and because of that I never wore it and when I did I was horribly uncomfortable and felt terrible. I also complained about the top I wore with that skirt and I how I continue to wear only because I do not have a color to replace it. Not true: I cannot think of an ensemble that requires the too-long and wide cowl-necked cream sweater instead of my recently acquired beige gold cable knit sweater. Thus far I've isolated a few cases in which things might have to go:

1. Not worn
2. Don't like
3. Doesn't fit

Well...there might be one more category (bear with me, I'm a structuralist at heart):

4. Shouldn't wear

Let's unpack what I mean by this. Like LHdM, I do not consider myself a fashionista and I reject the term on ideological and political grounds. I also do not think that our sartorial goals should be that we choose clothing only so that it attempts to conform our body to a long and lean standard. And I think its impractical to make that a daily goal for a short and curvy body.

Yet, this top might clash with my self-fashioning goals. I like this top because it reminds me of a dress I wore when I was 3-4 years old (that was also my mother's when she was a girl and remains in the hope chest). I also wear this top at least twice a month. But it is nearly impossible to wear with a skirt, because it looks frumpy to pair with an a-line skirt and proportions me weirdly in a skirt of any other shape. But its not the most flattering top on me with trousers either:

Do you see what I mean?

No?
And, lastly:

And yes, it's an unflattering photo, but I do turn to the side from time to time during the day! When I see this I definitely think that I don't want to look like that. I generally prefer the silhouette I create when wearing skirts or dresses, but pants don't necessarily always yield these tent lines (compare the same pants worn here and here).

So, Dear Readers, should it go? Should I save it for when I'm expecting? And if you suggest that I should keep and continue to wear it in my current nulliparous state, then what, pray tell, should I pair it with?

Pierced Academics in Dialogue

Many of us, as academics, have had to consider the ramifications that body piercings might have for our professional and personal lives.  Just what does being pierced mean for academics?  I sat down with my friend, fellow academic, and now co-blogger, Herr Doktor (HD), to begin to tease out some answers in hopes that you’ll join our conversation.

La Historiadora de Moda : When did you get your piercings and why? 

Herr Doktor: I still remember walking into the piercing shop for the first time to get my ear pierced.  It was a transitional moment in my life: I’d just finished undergrad, I was well on my way out of a bad relationship, and I was coming out.  So the earring, which is in my left ear, has a lot of personal meaning to me.  This was the early twenty-aughts and the old adage that right is gay and left is straight seemed to be fading away and wasn’t important to me.  My eyebrow piercing, on the other hand, was a purely aesthetic choice, even thought I got it right after completing my master’s thesis.  I think eyebrow piercings are hot on everyone, but, particularly on men.  So my piercings mark milestones for me but with very different meanings. 

HD:  What about you … when and why?

LHDM: I had my ears pierced when I was six years old.  I remember begging my mom to let me get them done, and finally she took me to Claire’s to do the deed.  I got several other ear piercings during my late teens, but I didn’t maintain their upkeep, and now they are piercing ghosts.  When I was 18, my best friend in high school and I both went and got our tongues pierced.  She paid for my piercing as a graduation gift.  I got my nose pierced about a year later.  Being from a small town, my piercings (particularly tongue and nose) marked me as different, as part of a subculture -- an alt crowd.  Later, in grad school, I spent a fair amount of time in European cities, and there it seemed that many more women (and men) had piercings.  It no longer marked me as different or being so subversive.  Instead it seemed to almost become a marker of belonging.

 LHDM:  Have any of your students, colleagues, or supervisors in grad school said anything to you about your piercings? 

HD: I’ve had students compliment me on my eyebrow piercing—the earring seems to be passé—sharing their enthusiasm about body art.  I do recall a conversation with fellow graduate students in which a number of people expressed concerns that having a piercing might negatively affect one’s prospects on the job market.  Never once, however, has a faculty supervisor suggested that there might be professional problems with my piercings.  Really, the most frequent comment is surprise after finally noticing a shiny bit of metal on my eyebrow because its gauge is on the small side.  Call me a subtle piercer.

HD:  Have any comments about your piercings in an academic setting stood out to you?

LHDM: I occasionally have received compliments on my earrings or nose stud from students or colleagues.  However, the only comment that really stands out is once a student told me I had something hanging out of my nose.  She thought it was a booger but then on closer inspection realized it was my nose screw.  We were both a little chagrined.  I’ve never had a single student or faculty colleague comment on my tongue piercing to date.  I don’t think it’s very noticeable under normal circumstances.

 LHDM: Are there any occasions for which you would remove your piercings?

HD: I may be a subtle piercer, but I’m also stubborn.  I really can’t think of a reason that I would remove them, unless I decided to change my style.

HD:  Would you remove your piercings for an academic job interview?

LHDM: No.  I have not removed them for any of the job interviews that I have had, including the ones that landed me academic positions.  My philosophy is that these piercings have become part of my identity.   You can expect me to wear a suit to an interview, but you can also expect to see a little bit of metal, too, if you're looking really closely.   I am, however, thinking about getting rid of my tongue piercing, because, even though I don’t play with it, I’m starting to notice some chipped enamel on the backs of my bottom front teeth that my dentist and my father-in-law, who is a dentist, might have something to say about.  It really pains me though to have to consider this, though. 

LHDM:  How do you think about your piercing as a public marker of gender and/or sexuality?

HD: Both of my piercings do have to do with my sexuality for different reasons.  Even though I didn’t follow the conventional gay/straight ear dichotomy, my earring is a powerful symbol of coming out for me.  Nevertheless, it seems clear now that earrings for men no longer signify sexuality in the way that they once did in the United States.  The meaning of other piercings for men still seems to be in flux.  When I had my eyebrow pierced, I thought it marked me as gay as a guy.  Lately that seems to be less and less the case, as piercings for men become increasingly mainstream.  On the other hand, when I see guys with eyebrow piercings, I’m still tempted to read them as gay unless I have other evidence to the contrary.  It still signifies that to me, even though I know societal norms may be changing.

 HD: Do you see piercings as such markers?

LHDM:  I think with the increasing popularity of alt and hipster scenes, piercings no longer have such easily defined significances.  To some extent in high school and definitely in college, I ran with a crowd that was into body art and that encompassed a relatively large number of LGBTQ people, including myself.  I felt that to some extent my piercings connected to my identity as a bisexual woman, but I think this had to do more with the timing of my piercings (and first tattoo) than with  public conceptions of women’s sexuality and piercings as a marker thereof.  Of course, I have spent most of the past descade in large urban areas, and these perceptions about piercings may not be the same in more rural areas.  All this of course is a bit of a generalization, and I’m sure people can and will write dissertations on these topics.

HD: No doubt someone is writing such a dissertation, and I would love to read it!  My thesis overall would be that, despite recent fluctuations, piercings for men are more likely to be social markers of their sexuality than those of women.  I’d also be interested in thinking more about the role that piercings play in conceptions of class and race.

So, dear readers, what do you think about piercings in the academy?  If you have a piercing, do you view it as a public marker of your identity or sexuality in any way?  Do you feel as though you’ve ever experienced discrimination because of a piercing?

Self-Fashioning: What Fashion Means to Me

Basse Mode has recently asked for submissions on the meaning of fashion.  Here is my take.

I have already said that I do not consider myself a fashionista.  What draws me to fashion, to clothing is not the sense of the word as a noun, which for me implies some sort of hegemonic power that controls the whims and desires of women, but fashion's powerful sense as a verb.  Fashioning means making; it means creating.  By wearing one thing I can help to create and present a certain self, a certain identity; by wearing something else I fashion myself in another way.  Clothing can be a powerful tool for making assertions about political views, feminist views, religious beliefs, and so forth.  I'm a pierced, tattooed academic who likes to wear dresses and blazers.  I shop at thrift stores as much as possible.  I like to buy and wear Fluevogs because they are funky and because I approve of Fluevog's labor policy.  I wear nerdy glasses most of the time when I teach because nothing says scholarly authority like a pair of glasses.  I'm a feminist, female academic who likes to mix metaphors as much as I like to mix patterns.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth century (the period that I study) men and women in Europe and its colonies dressed according to their social station, race, and sex, and sumptuary laws issued by both civil and church authorities attempted to make sure that people did not commit sins of luxury or subvert the social order by dressing above their rank.  The fact that in many places these laws had to be issued with significant frequency suggests that people violated these laws.  There is evidence that lower class women donned pearls, and precious stones, and lace in the face of prohibitions, that people luxuriated in dress, that female actresses dared to wear pants without a skirt over them on the stage, that some women cross-dressed to escape the proscribed roles of women or to illicitly meet with lovers.  This all indicates that people saw dress as a powerful tool for defining who they were and who they no longer wanted to be.  Clothes were important and often treasured possessions.

Today in the United States we don't have sumptuary laws to violate and rebel against, but that doesn't mean there aren't constant social pressures to look a certain way, to wear the next trendy thing, to be careful about wearing skinny jeans if your legs aren't a mile long and the width of a pencil.  There is tremendous pressure on women to be thin, just as at the same time many people refuse to acknowledge that a woman who is naturally thin can be a "real woman."  There is the idea that women should be slaves to dieting in order to have a body mandated by an industry standard and that they are slaves to fashion, to consumerism, to buying the next best thing because the cut and style of the thing that was so hot three months ago is now dated, frumpy, and wearing it would get you on the fashion taboos page.

I am no slave to fashion.  I am no fashionista.  Some people may disagree with my take and with my sense of style.  That's okay.  It's about choice.  As I said, my view of fashion is about verbs not nouns.  It is much more about agency, about choosing what I want to wear based on context, confidence, adventure, feminism, asserting or subverting authority, and a sense of humor.  I self-fashion.  I construct my identities and I do it with the help of what's in my wardrobe.

If you haven't yet checked out the Basse Mode project, you should!

Are you a self-fashioner?

Q & A with La Historiadora de Moda

In a post that I wrote last week, I gave you the opportunity to ask a bit about me.  I decided to break the questions up into two posts: one on my academic life (forthcoming) and this post in which I will answer the questions that some of you awesome readers asked me about my personal life.

Caffeinerd asked, "if money and professional responsibilities were non-issues, how would you spend the next year of your life?"
I would like to travel for a couple of months.  I'd really like to see more of Africa (I've only been to Morocco) and I have a hankering to see Australia.  Then, I think I'd like to live in Italy for the rest of that time.  I'd love to learn Italian, and I could handle about 280-300 days filled with learning language, working on some writing projects, and eating risotto with my husband.

Anonymous asked, "how did you meet your husband?"
M. and I met in grad school.  He entered the program a year after I did.  I thought he was pretty cute.  Shortly after we met, M. invited me to see Shaun of Dead at the theater and have a coffee.  I totally thought it was a date; he apparently didn't.  So after the coffee, I mentioned that some friends/colleagues of ours were at another bar if we wanted to join them.  We had driven separately so we decided to meet at the bar.  I called one of my friends to tell him we were coming.  Apparently, he told everyone that we were on our way and that we were on a date, so that they should all leave so we would be alone.  Well, M. and I both arrived an none of our friends were there.  Awkward.

We ended up becoming good friends anyway, and, when I was living in Madrid, I came back here to visit for a couple of weeks.  I stayed with him, and one thing led to another.  Then, I went back to Madrid, and we went back to being friends.  When I moved back to the states several months later, I admitted to him that I liked him as more than a friend.  We started dating -- cautiously at first because we had been friends for a long time and didn't want things to be too weird if things didn't work out.  Soon we were throwing caution to the wind.  I completely recommend falling in love with a good friend! We got engaged a little over a year ago and got married two weeks ago.

Kim asked, "will you and the husband take a honeymoon eventually?"
Yes, but not for a few months.  Ideally, we’d like to go to Madrid for a few days to see friends of mine, and then spend a week or so in Crete and Santorini, but right now our plans are complicated by a few issues, including our academic schedules. 

Musing Around asked, "imagining that you had a big-deal professor salary, and not a graduate student stipend, what would you add to your closet?"
I would be very tempted to buy a vintage Chanel suit or two and more vintage dresses and coats in general.  I would also definitely buy more Fluevogs and Wendy Brandes Jewelry.

KC asked, "What is your favorite book?"
Honestly I have quite a few, but I'll narrow it down to a couple of super favorite novels (and a monograph or two in the forthcoming post).  La casa de los espiritus (The House of the Spirits) by Isabel Allende was one of the first books that I read in Spanish that had nothing to do with my research.  It sucked me in and left me breathless and it was the fastest I've ever read Spanish.  I love magical realism, and another of my favorite novels is The Baron in the Trees (Il Barone Rampante) by Italo Calvino.  It is a beautiful tale about a young lad Cosimo (the eldest son and heir of a baron) who refuses to eat his dinner (snails) one day and gets in trouble.  So he runs off to the back yard and climbs an oak tree.  From there, he proclaims that he won't ever come down from the trees, that he'll never set foot on the ground again.  And he never does.  He eats, he makes friends, he takes lovers, he reads Enlightenment authors, and grows old in the trees.  The love of his life, Viola, is smart and fierce.  It's a book that fills me with both a painful longing and peace at the same time, and, whenever I read it, I wish I could read Italian so that I could savor it in the original language.

It might not come as a surprise that I spent as much time as possible in the trees when I was a kid, which is a bit of a paradox because I'm afraid of heights....  I had one in particularly that had the perfect nubby little branch at just the right height for an easy climb.  I used to climb my tree and read in it during the summer.  I probably would have climbed a tree yesterday if I hadn't been wearing a white skirt.¹

1. Dress as shirt - Nine West (remixed)

Skirt - Anthropologie (four or five years old)

Cardi - Target (remixed)

Boots - John Fluevog (remixed)

Flower pin - NY&Co. (remixed)

Belt - Ralph Lauren (Filene's Basement)

Tights - Target (remixed)

Ring - Gift

So, what about you?  Are you a tree climber?  What's your favorite book? You get bonus points for a favorite academic book and a favorite novel!

Fall Flowers

Although it's much colder today here in the Midwest than it was the past couple of days, it's still a tad bit unseasonably warm for November.  So I decided this morning to wear a pair of open toed high heel shoes.  I probably wouldn't have worn them regardless of the nice, sunny weather, if it hadn't been for the fact that I only had to teach one class today and only had to schlep around one campus.  I like high heels, but on days when I know I have to walk more than 30 minutes on campuses and to buses I just don't think they're worth it (or, as a runner, worth the potential blisters).  I also probably wouldn't have worn these particular shoes if they hadn't gone so well with my skirt and matched the red of my shirt.   I love the floral pattern of these shoes. It also helped that one of this season's trends is to embrace flowery patterns for fall not just for spring.  I complimented the floral look of my shoes and the leafy pattern of my skirt with my lovely faux cameo necklace.

At any rate, my colleagues noticed my shoes.  As I was standing in the kitchen of my office building waiting for water to boil for a cup of tea, a colleage - who was also getting hot water - remarked that my shoes matched my skirt perfectly.  Then, another colleague, who had walked in to get his lunch, commented that they were perfect camoflage for walking around in fall leaves.  A third colleague, whose office is located right off the kitchen, heard this and insisted that I come into her office so that she could see my shoes. 

*Footnotes

Shirt - Pixie Hopkins (Filene's Basement)

Skirt - New York & Company

Tights - Target

Cardigan - August Silk (thrifted)

Shoes - Steve Madden (b-day gift)

Necklace - Etsy

Later when I thought about this, I realized that I didn't and don't feel any mockery in any of their remarks.  In part, no doubt, they have become used to seeing me in my many pairs of boots and shoes.   In part, these three colleagues all dress nicely.  I also felt that what thechemist-coture noted the other day is true: that there is increasingly a sense of approval for being dressed well, if not necessarily for being dressed stylishly.  Of course some academics (and people in other professions) still view fashion and any interest in fashion as empty-headed frivolity, but I like to think of clothing and style as enabling self-fashioning.   Do you find this to be true in your field?  Do you see increasing numbers of colleagues in your discipline caring about their appearance and wardrobe?