Academic Style

Myself, I am currently looking I was dragged through a hedge backwards by a rope. So I should really not be saying this: the article on academics and dress expressed what I saw at the last American Historical Association.

It also expressed much of what I felt as an undergraduate. Professors seemed damned unwilling to speak to a class, and they expressed this in part by looking like unkempt hobos. Who can say which came first, the unwillingness or the esthetique hoboesque. But the two did often co-exist. What a refreshing thing it was to have a professor who wore a gown during his lectures. He had been savaged by campus radicals for this practice in the '60's. In the '80's, us neotraditionalist undergrads found it an indication that he thought lecturing to us was an Event; and we treated it accordingly.

While I applaud the Doc on his neo-Schlesingerian apparel, myself I look forward to dressing in something a bit towards the formal side, yet in colors and patterns not to be found in a law office. As much as I like a nice tweed, I am afraid that it is a little too sterotypical. Unless it comes in a suit, or with a leather waistcoat, of course.