patern mixing: plaid and organic dots, originally uploaded by academichic.

Morocco Earrings, originally uploaded by academichic.

7 December 2010, originally uploaded by academichic.

• Scarf – Echo
• Sweater – J Crew
• Denim Pencil Skirt- BR Outlet
• Belt – New York & Co
• Boots- Banana Republic, via ebay

Today I am wearing this beautiful paisley scarf in shades of green and blue sent to me from Echo.  I loved how S. has  been wearing scarves over turtlenecks and how my scarf looked yesterday around the popped collar of my button down.  I don’t own many turtlenecks so tried it out with a shawl neck color sweater and am rather satisfied with the effect.  This scarf is a large square in a light thin material.   Echo has how many beautiful colors, patterns, and shapes and I’m excited to have a shape I don’t usually wear.  Like E. the other day,  I folded my scarf into a triangle and wrapped the small points behind my neck and then tied them in the front underneath the larger point of the triangle.  I am really liking this style and I already have many ideas of how I will wear this once the weather finally warms up a bit!

Ok, now for part two of my digression.  I wrote yesterday about dressing to express identity and the possibility of changing styles to express a different identity to different people.  All of your comments are so interesting!

As promised I want to talk a little bit about drag.  I have done quite a bit of thinking about drag because in my studies I continually wrestle with Judith Butler and because I am writing my dissertation on a male artist who often poses as a woman in his photographs. I also love a good drag show for entertainment and believe that drag has significant political potential.  This political and radical potential was confirmed for me this  past weekend – I saw some amazing activist performers.

I also heard an interesting suggestion about daily drag.  I have long believed that to some degree we often all dress in drag – this is because I believe that gender is a construction and that clothing works to construct and perpetuate gender identity.  However my thoughts on this were pushed further by a speaker at the conference who argued that we have two options when getting dressed: we either dress in drag or in a uniform.  If we don’t think about the message our clothing is sending that we are wearing a uniform, if we are conscious of it then it’s drag.  According to her definition, drag is a conscious dressing that sends a message about gender identity and makes people laugh, cry, or think.  If we take this definition then S. E. and I are dressing in drag everyday (at least everyday we post here) since we are certainly very conscious of what we are wearing and the messages it might convey.   I’m still working though these ideas but what do you think about this uniform vs. drag thing?

Ok, so why do I find this a powerful idea?  Sal asked yesterday if anyone made any comments or asked any questions about my attire.
I was very comfortable and confident in my appearance and I  felt totally accepted (I think this feeling had a lot to do with my own confidence) but I did have a few students ask me questions about how I dressed.  One student asked if I felt like I “passed,” if people assumed I was straight because of how I dressed.  I think our default is usually that someone is straight so while perhaps my clothing could reveal my sexuality, I would still “pass” on the phone, on paper, etc.  I explained to my students that I am confident in my clothing and that helps me feel confident about my identity, my relationship, and my scholarship.

I think the idea of dressing in drag appeals to me because I am aware that my clothing is a choice and that it sends a message and I like that my daily performance challenges people’s notions about what it means to be a lesbian and what it means to be feminine.  Our words and actions have to work in conjunction with our clothing and when you take my whole package into account there are some great seeming contradictions at work: I love pencil skirts and I am a lesbian, I wear heals and run marathons, I like pink and hot sauce and dark beer, I wear ruffly dresses and work boots and gloves.  I agree with most of you who said you pick what you wear based on the situation (pencil skirts for teaching, jeans for the bar, trendier items for campus, conservative wear for an interview, etc) but I have found that my overall sense of style doesn’t change as much as it once did (in an attempt to fit in with different groups of people).  Yet, it is empowering to remember that if it is all drag, a dramatic costume change is always an option!

A.

• Pink Button Down – J Crew
• Scarf – Old Navy
• Navy Skirt – J Crew
• Tights- BR Outlet
• Shoes – Anthropologie, via ebay

In our last few days of scarf month I am taking on E.’s challenge to me to do a little pattern mixing, so I have paired this bold hot pink and paisley scarf with my bright pink pinstriped button down.  I like the result of a business silhouette with such bold and daring colors and patters.   I felt professional enough to teach and attend a job-search-committee meeting but I also think I brought a little extra life to both of these activities!

Now for a digression: This past weekend I took a group of students to an LGBT college leadership conference.  I learned quite a bit and was reminded about many things I had learned long ago and have been excited to talk all about it with E. S. and lots of other people. But, here I want to reflect on how the whole conference experience, particularly the key note speakers and discussions with my students pushed me to think about clothing and self presentation.

While preparing to pack for the weekend I was struggling with what would be appropriate.  E. asked me if I thought I would dress differently for such a specific crowd – LGBT college students.   I think at some point in my life, I likely wold have chosen less “feminine” items and thought more about how I could easily convey lesbian through my appearance. I am now much more comfortable in both my sexuality and my physical appearance than I was back as an undergraduate, so that was not the issue (more on this later). Instead, I was caught up on the word “conference.”

These days conference conjures up some pretty specific attire, but this was not an academic conference and I was not a presenter, yet I did want to be distinguishable as an advisor (not an undergraduate student) and was aware that I might make some professional connections.   I ended up choosing jeans with my wrap cardigan and skinny cords with a button down and was very happy with my choices all weekend.

Since this is getting so  long already, I’ll save my next installment, in which I will suggest we are all dressing in drag, for tomorrow!  In the mean time, I would love to hear for you.  How much do you change your style depending on audience and situation?  I’m not talking about the difference between pencil skirt for the office and jeans for the bar – but rather how do different crowds of people, and your desire to connect with them, influence your style?  A.

• Black Cable V-neck – J Crew
• Houndstooth Trousers – Urban Outfitters
• Scarf – H & M
• Belt – Gift from Sal
• Boots – J Crew

It looks like my student’s visual analysis papers have led to a great discussion. Now if I could only get this discussion going in the class room!  I have found all of your comments about the marketing of clothing, particularly the use of essentalizing gendered language and the heteronormativity of such marketing, so interesting!

It seems the limitations of language is always an issue when trying to avoid generalizations.  My students always struggle with this.  What pronoun should they use when writing about the viewer of a work of art?  Their default is always “he.”  Understandably, they don’t want to use the awkward “he/she” (problematic for its  conformance to a binary anyway).  I  encourage them to be specific whenever possible.  Was the work of art created for a monastery?  Then, the viewer was probably male.  Is it a contemporary art work you saw at the museum?  Then, use YOUR preferred pronoun.

Similarly, I try to demonstrate to them that claiming a figure looks feminine says very little about the figure.  Be specific. Tell me he has an elongated neck and red cheeks if that is what you observe. If you avoid associating these characteristics with the figure’s gender (or sexuality, as some students did) you leave yourself open to other possibilities — its cold outside, its a mannerist work, etc.

I started this discussion yesterday because I wanted to talk about the combining of different aesthetics often labeled “feminine” and “masculine” and was finding myself frustrated not to have better terms to use.  I was reminded by reader AC to be specific!  I loved her suggestion of using the terms “geometric” and “organic” to describe yesterday’s combination of stripes and flowers.

The last time I wore the striped cardigan, I noted the combination of  slouchy and polished and  when I wore A2′s jeans (which fit me like “boyfriend jeans” b/c they are a size bigger than my own) I called them girlfriend jeans — specific!

I think once again today’s outfit is the perfect combination of geometric (houndstooth) and organic (floral vine pattern) and of loose (scarf) and structured (belt).  I like that none of these terms – geometric, organic, slouchy, polished, loose, structured, carry any gendered connotations.  It’s actually quite difficult to find descriptive terms that are not gendered in connotation.

What terms do you like?

A

I loved the layering of the bright read plaid over the monochromatic stripes,  but I think the teal and grey, while a subtler use of color also makes for an interesting contrast.  I self-consciously avoid the terms “masculine” and “feminine” when describing the mixing of elements that seem to have different feels to them (ie stripes and flowers).  I haven’t come up with an alternative way of describing this contrast, but want to steer clear of the essentializing language we so often see in the marketing of clothing.

Interestingly enough, the gendering of clothing has come up in several of the student papers I am grading this week.  When attempting to do a visual analysis of a painting of an Italian nobleman, many students described his as effeminate because of the lace at his collar, the ring on his pinky, and the shinny black robe students misidentified as a dress.  In my comments, I am reminding them that: 1) they should be careful about making  essentialist generalizations about gender (their discussions went beyond the clothing) 2) they should remember that whether we consider clothing “masculine” or not is inextricably linked to culture, period, occupation, etc.

This reminded me of the great exercise reader N. uses in the classroom, in which she asks  students to do a visual analysis of her clothing and then followed this with a discussion about interpreting clothing.   I can’t wait to test this lesson out, but for now it’s back to grading for me.

A.