Fashion: How to Dress for Interviews/Work

[queennight]

I've always been curious about this topic, just because in academia everybody seems to fairly wear what they like (at least during the undergraduate/MA route), but I've been noticing that the PhD students that I come into contact with are increasingly professionalizing their wardrobe. (Yes, there's always that one kid in a suit, but I'm talking about the seemingly increasing trend to wear blazers with jeans, pairing blouses with casual pants, etc.)

 

This hasn't seemingly been discussed on this forum before, but I'm curious to hear input about fashion in academia. The professors that I have had always seemed to maintain a business casual look - so not fully corporate/business, but a decent mix. I'm wondering if this was just at my undergraduate institution, or if this was widespread.

 

I have a couple main questions (that may, incidentally, vary per discipline): What is appropriate to wear as a TA? Are there any tricks to interview attire? Has anybody worked/taught/completed a postdoc at a university that had a strict dress code?

 

I'd love to hear general experiences or opinions!

[queennight]

Also - does anybody have advice on attire for conferences? The one conference I attended seemed relatively strict on dress codes (everyone in business casual, except for the odd bewildered student stumbling around in leggings and Uggs clutching their appetizers) but I'm wondering if there are any situations where anything other than business casual is allowed.

[ginagirl]

This has been discussed pretty extensively here: 

Conferences should always be business casual attire, in my opinion. The only exception I've seen so far was at a conference in Hawaii, where some people were SLIGHTLY more casually dressed. But really you should look nice.

[juilletmercredi]

Three separate questions, I think:

 

1) Interview attire for academic jobs should be business formal - a suit, usually in some darker color (black, grey, charcoal, navy, perhaps brown).

 

2) As for every day wear...professors run the gamut depending on university, department, and personal style.  Most commonly I've seen business casual.  My grad department was on the slightly more business side of business casual - button-downs, slacks, vests, maybe a blazer but no ties and suits.  I'm a postdoc now and my department is much less formal.  Most people do like khakis and nice tops; some do jeans and sneakers with button-downs.

 

I am a postdoc and my university does not have a strict dress code.  I don't think my advisors even notice what I wear.  I tend to be dressier than everyone else anyway, so I wear nice slacks and sweaters/button-downs/dressy tops with shoes or boots.  Occasionally, especially on Fridays when I have no meetings, I will dress more down and wear nice jeans with Keds and a nice sweater or top.  But there are some postdocs who show up in jeans all the time and nobody really cares.

 

3) As a TA, I dressed pretty much the same as I did every day - jeans and a nice top, keds or flats.  I avoided wearing T-shirts on the days I was teaching, but other than that I didn't give much thought to it.

 

4) At conferences I am always business casual - slacks or a skirt and a dress top, with dress shoes.  I tend to wear lower, chunkier heeled shoes because walking around on carpet all day in heels is uncomfortable.  But I also don't wear flats, usually, unless I'm wearing slacks.  I get complimented on my conference attire a lot, because again, I tend to be dressier than everyone else (I like dressing up, lol).  The conferences I've been at range the gamut and dressiness seems to be inversely related to rank and position within academia - the famous full professors clump around in khakis and Birkenstocks, and the grad students and postdocs looking for jobs are in business casual or sometimes more.