UC Davis students and professor discuss the history and trends of professor fashion
By EVELYN SANCHEZ — features@theaggie.org
Waking up and stumbling to early-morning lectures, the only thing on any student’s mind is often going back to bed. Lectures can grow more tiring as the quarter continues on, and students can lose interest in certain professors. However, professors with a signature flair — particularly in regards to their fashion sense — tend to be remembered more vividly in the minds of their students.
UC Davis students including Juliana Sandoval, a fourth-year sustainable environmental design major, have commented that their professors’ fashion sense might inspire their own.
“I had a professor show up every day dressed to the nines,” Sandoval said. “It makes me want to show up dressed nice too. She would come every day looking like a professional baddie.”
Sandoval was referencing her past professor Elizabeth Boults, a continuing lecturer on landscape architecture and environmental design at UC Davis.
With higher education in the United States getting its start largely on the East Coast, the “college” look originated at the eight northeastern Ivy League colleges in America — the Ivy League aesthetic has since been the default look for higher education and academia. Blazers, coats and brogues were often worn by the common wealthy, white student, and that sense of style has transferred to other universities and stood the test of time.
“In California in general, there’s less formality than in other regions,” Claire Goldstein, a professor of French and the director of the Humanities Program at UC Davis, said. “I find it cute, funny and interesting [that] on the Internet, people draw my attention to images of dark academia as an aesthetic. That definitely recalls professors I had when I was a student.”
Goldstein specializes in exploring fashion culture and philosophical conceptions of the body and teaches a version of the humanities forum HUM 001: How To Be a (Fashion) Critic. Goldstein went to college on the East Coast, attaining her Bachelor of Arts at Hamilton College and her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. Goldstein described that her journey in higher education was frequented by the ties and blazers familiar to the era.
Campuses in the Northeast United States would dictate the future of academic wear based on being the first and richest. Adopting elements of traditional British fashion, the Ivy League style became popular during the 1950s and 1960s.
Formerly used to denote a person’s casual yet wealthy status, the evolution of the look continues to be associated with academia and wealth but carries different meanings for older professors and younger students. Instead, the “old money” and “dark academia” aesthetic reflect the nostalgia of the past and romanticizes a foregone era.
However, the casual nature of public universities often brings an atmosphere of comfort rather than formality to some students and faculty.
“Part of me feels like they’re a little bit stricter,” McKenna Thomas, a fourth-year art history major, said. “My professors who dress the same every day have chill vibes.”
Sandoval also finds inspiration in the casual.
“I like it when professors wear the same thing every day,” Sandoval said. “I feel like I should be like that. To me, it’s the epitome of chill.”
Goldstein continued by sharing her own experiences observing professor fashion in the past.
“I would walk into my English literature class, and my professor would be there in a tweed coat and elbow patches,” Goldstein said. “When I studied in France, my professor would have a scarf and a coat and he’d be smoking. There was a much more stereotypical professor look that has since diversified.”
Goldstein also commented that oftentimes, professors’ fashion choices are reflective of their level of professionalism — or, sometimes, their lack thereof.
“There [are] different ways to be a professor,” Goldstein said. “There’s the convenience and performative aspect. It’s also about how you see yourself as a professor.”
As a top research university, several thousand UC Davis professors and faculty are also busy with their own projects. STEM professors often run labs and conduct studies aside from grading and lecturing. With the attire that labs demand — goggles, lab coats and closed-toe shoes — there is hardly room for outfit experimentation.
Goldstein also remarked that fashion and expectations are not only influenced by history but also by the more immediate climate of the area.
“Since I moved to Davis in 2013, I bike myself to work and around campus,” Goldstein said. “When I came here, I was like, ‘Flip flops? I don’t wear flip-flops.’ And then I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll wear them in my yard but I’ll never wear them into town.’ And then I found myself in class one day after rushing to get on my bike, and I’m wearing my Birkenstock slides. I would never have done that on the East Coast.”
However, fashion-based nostalgia can often be reflective of larger societal trends surrounding diversity, with now being one of the most diverse times in fashion history, according to Forbes. A study done by Pew Research Center shows that though college faculty in the United States has diversified greatly over the last two decades, they still remain far less so compared to university students.
An alternate study done by Digest of Education Statistics showed that even as of 2021, 64.5% of faculty were white, with only 6.1% of full-time faculty being African American. Racial disparities among collegiate faculty still have a long way to go to reflect the diversity of the United States as a whole.
Goldstein shared some final thoughts about whether or not it takes a certain ‘look’ to be a professor in the contemporary world.
“The people who have become professors have diversified,” Goldstein said. “The body of professors was rather homogenous. As we have diversified, so have the ways we dress. One of the nice things about being a professor is that there is no uniform anymore. You don’t have to look a certain way to be a professor.”
Written by: Evelyn Sanchez — features@theaggie.org
