I'll be back next week. Until then, here's some more etsy goodness I've been wishing I could afford. From RoseYeskova, there is this tunic:
And from Miss Bunny, these "Glittering Kraken" shoes:
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
A holiday break and more etsy goodness
For Thanksgiving, I am taking the week off. I don't have to teach again until next Monday and I'll likely actually have time this week to rest. So I'm taking a break from the blog, too.
I'll be back next week. Until then, here's some more etsy goodness I've been wishing I could afford. From RoseYeskova, there is this tunic:
And from Miss Bunny, these "Glittering Kraken" shoes:
I'll be back next week. Until then, here's some more etsy goodness I've been wishing I could afford. From RoseYeskova, there is this tunic:
And from Miss Bunny, these "Glittering Kraken" shoes:
Thursday, November 15, 2007
New Outfit and New Arrivals
Today's outfit represents an exploration in fashion for me in more than one way. For one thing, I'm not wearing black at all. I'm sure there are outfits I've posted in which I'm not wearing any black, but it still feels like a big deal for me not to wear black. When I'm at a loss, I tend to reach for black.
I also realized recently that I almost never get dressed without having planned things out ahead of time. This morning, however, I just threw together a few things that a) were clean (I haven't done laundry in ages), b) were the right size (some clothes fit better than others these days), and c) hadn't been worn in a while. I tried not to overthink it, and I quite like what I wound up with by exploring a different color focus and a different process that allows more freedom.
Outfit details:
Green sweater, aqua tee, gray skirt, teal tights: Target
Snail necklace: etsy seller PreciousPups
Gray SAS shoes: thrifted
After today's class, I also discovered that I'd received three packages in the mail today. The awesome Darla at The Vintage Zoo sent me this wonderful jacket:
I love the colors and the flower print. It's comfy, too. I can't wait to wear it!
I also received a whale pin from Elegant Musings and a painted jeep necklace from Star Willow Studio. Hooray for new accessories!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Fun with Wigs: Or, Playing Dress-Up with My Head
I have short hair. I have had this short hair for about five years now. I like it. It's easy, it's cute, and I feel like it fits my personality. But sometimes I want to do something different. What's a girl to do?
One answer: wigs.
I have long wished for wigs that I could wear, just for a change, and recently I've bought a few. I didn't buy any for years after I decided I wanted to because it's a real attention-getter to show up one day and look completely different than you did the day before. I mean, show up in different clothes, even dramatically different clothes, and people will probably notice but not be confused by it. Show up in different hair and people are genuinely confused. Hair, unlike clothes, is an identifier, a way to tell people apart quickly.
As an example, one of my close friends has had blonde, sort of naturally wavy hair for a while now, but she recently got a new style, a straight, dark brown bob. She describes it to me before I saw it by saying, "Think Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction," which is a pretty accurate description. It looks really great, but it's quite a change. It's so drastic a change, in fact, that when she showed up to teach her class of college students, several did not recognize her and thought she was a substitute. Keep in mind that this is more than halfway through the semester. Furthermore, one of the graduate professors, one of the graduate professors who is on her committee, whom she has known for years, sat right next to her in a meeting and never seemed to realize who she was in her new hairstyle. These people have had a chance to see her often and to see more than just her blonde hair, but they were easily fooled by a new cut and color.
So I'm wary of the response I'll get if I put on new hair. But I finally decided to go for it. I've been getting braver in my clothing choices, so I should be braver in my hair choices, too. Oddly, despite my trepidation, I decided to start with something wild. My first wig was a blue bob. I wore it to a concert and I really liked the way it looked. I wound up having to take it off halfway through because the wig cap was too tight and my head was killing me, but I liked the wig itself.
Since then, I've also acquired a dark brown bob wig and a black, wavy shoulder-length wig. I haven't worn the dark brown one out yet, but I wore the black one out a few nights ago. It got a pretty good reception. My friend was surprised (I hadn't warned her I would look different and I see her on a regular basis), but others who see me less frequently seemed to think it looked natural. My friend's mother said, upon first seeing me that evening, "Gosh, Christy, doesn't your hair grow fast!" and her brother asked if I had straightened my hair. I hastily assured them that it was not my real hair. To have not done so would've felt like lying. But their responses were interesting. Apparently, to people who don't see me very often, it is more logical to assume that I've just styled it differently or that my hair grows really fast than to assume that I'm wearing a wig.
My night out with a friend a few days ago and my concertgoing in a wig represent first steps in making wigs part of my fashion repertoire. I don't want to wear them too terribly often, but I do want to wear them more than once every four or five months. And I want to be more confident in my choice to wear a wig, less worried about others' reactions.
Eventually, maybe I'll even work up the courage to wear a wig to school.
One answer: wigs.
I have long wished for wigs that I could wear, just for a change, and recently I've bought a few. I didn't buy any for years after I decided I wanted to because it's a real attention-getter to show up one day and look completely different than you did the day before. I mean, show up in different clothes, even dramatically different clothes, and people will probably notice but not be confused by it. Show up in different hair and people are genuinely confused. Hair, unlike clothes, is an identifier, a way to tell people apart quickly.
As an example, one of my close friends has had blonde, sort of naturally wavy hair for a while now, but she recently got a new style, a straight, dark brown bob. She describes it to me before I saw it by saying, "Think Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction," which is a pretty accurate description. It looks really great, but it's quite a change. It's so drastic a change, in fact, that when she showed up to teach her class of college students, several did not recognize her and thought she was a substitute. Keep in mind that this is more than halfway through the semester. Furthermore, one of the graduate professors, one of the graduate professors who is on her committee, whom she has known for years, sat right next to her in a meeting and never seemed to realize who she was in her new hairstyle. These people have had a chance to see her often and to see more than just her blonde hair, but they were easily fooled by a new cut and color.
So I'm wary of the response I'll get if I put on new hair. But I finally decided to go for it. I've been getting braver in my clothing choices, so I should be braver in my hair choices, too. Oddly, despite my trepidation, I decided to start with something wild. My first wig was a blue bob. I wore it to a concert and I really liked the way it looked. I wound up having to take it off halfway through because the wig cap was too tight and my head was killing me, but I liked the wig itself.
Since then, I've also acquired a dark brown bob wig and a black, wavy shoulder-length wig. I haven't worn the dark brown one out yet, but I wore the black one out a few nights ago. It got a pretty good reception. My friend was surprised (I hadn't warned her I would look different and I see her on a regular basis), but others who see me less frequently seemed to think it looked natural. My friend's mother said, upon first seeing me that evening, "Gosh, Christy, doesn't your hair grow fast!" and her brother asked if I had straightened my hair. I hastily assured them that it was not my real hair. To have not done so would've felt like lying. But their responses were interesting. Apparently, to people who don't see me very often, it is more logical to assume that I've just styled it differently or that my hair grows really fast than to assume that I'm wearing a wig.
My night out with a friend a few days ago and my concertgoing in a wig represent first steps in making wigs part of my fashion repertoire. I don't want to wear them too terribly often, but I do want to wear them more than once every four or five months. And I want to be more confident in my choice to wear a wig, less worried about others' reactions.
Eventually, maybe I'll even work up the courage to wear a wig to school.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Dressing the Part
Over the course of my life, I have developed a sense of what kind of outfit is appropriate to specific situations and varying levels of formality; however, my personal sense of propriety does not necessarily match that of others. This distinction most often surfaces and comes to matter at work.
I am a graduate teaching assistant at a fairly large state university. I teach English courses (mostly freshmen and sophomore, although this semester I've taken on a senior level course as well), go to faculty meetings, meet with students, and do a lot of my own work as a grad student here on campus, among the undergraduates I teach. I am the teacher of record for the classes I teach. I design and plan the classes, teach them myself, do all the grading and deal with the students myself. There is no senior professor who is officially or actually in charge. It's all me.
As such, I want to be professional and I generally tend to dress up more than I might if I were only a student at the university. (That doesn't bother me at all, of course, because I like to dress up.) This tendency toward dressing up is encouraged further by the fact that I am only a few years older than the students I am teaching. At the beginning of the semester, I dress more conservatively, more formally, and more like I think students think a teacher should dress. I do this to make the distinction between myself and the students in the class as clear as possible and establish the power dynamic of the course from the start. I can and do relax this distinction as the course develops, but without a clear foundation it is far too easy, I have found, for the students to get too comfortable, which means getting lazy and sometimes presumptive. In short, they think they can walk all over me if I give the impression of being too friendly too soon.
All that being said, though, I want to dress like myself and I want to be myself when I'm teaching. As a teacher I am playing a role, enhancing certain elements of myself, but I want to be as true to myself and as honest with my students as I can be. So I do relax after a couple of weeks and start to experiment with outfits.
It is here that I break with my peers. I know many who go through a similar process of laying down the law at first and then relaxing as the semester progresses (and they often reflect this process in their clothing, too), but there are just as many who retain the same level of formality or business-like attire throughout the entire semester. One fellow graduate teaching assistant (male) would not teach without wearing dress pants, a buttondown shirt, and a tie. Some students have similar ideas about how teachers should appear. In fact, on a recent student evaluation I had a female student write that I should dress more professionally because my outfits were often distracting.
Despite these differences within my department and my field, I truly have a lot of freedom. During the training course when I began this job, which was several years ago now, the director of the First-Year Writing Program, the program I was entering into, told us that how we dressed was mostly a personal decision, one we could determine as part of developing our teaching personae. Her only recommendation was that we not expose ourselves to the students. And although students do have certain expectations of instructors based on their prior experience, they seem much more willing to accept experimentation from instructors in the liberal arts like myself. Just as there is a stereotype of the buttoned-down professor with tweed and elbow patches or the plain teacher in glasses, there is a counterstereotype of English teachers, as well as art teachers and music teachers, as hippies and artists and free spirits.
But others have less freedom: instructors in other departments, people who work in other fields altogether, people who must wear uniforms.
I know how I deal with this issue. I use my own best judgment for what will be appropriate (while teaching, this frequently means something that won't distract too much from the topic at hand) and sashay through my life with the confidence that I look good and no one can stop me from doing so. But how do others deal with this isssue in their lives? How concerned are you with appropriateness in dressing yourself on a regular basis? How do you work your personal style into the workplace? Does it cause problems? Or does it bring positive attention?
I am a graduate teaching assistant at a fairly large state university. I teach English courses (mostly freshmen and sophomore, although this semester I've taken on a senior level course as well), go to faculty meetings, meet with students, and do a lot of my own work as a grad student here on campus, among the undergraduates I teach. I am the teacher of record for the classes I teach. I design and plan the classes, teach them myself, do all the grading and deal with the students myself. There is no senior professor who is officially or actually in charge. It's all me.
As such, I want to be professional and I generally tend to dress up more than I might if I were only a student at the university. (That doesn't bother me at all, of course, because I like to dress up.) This tendency toward dressing up is encouraged further by the fact that I am only a few years older than the students I am teaching. At the beginning of the semester, I dress more conservatively, more formally, and more like I think students think a teacher should dress. I do this to make the distinction between myself and the students in the class as clear as possible and establish the power dynamic of the course from the start. I can and do relax this distinction as the course develops, but without a clear foundation it is far too easy, I have found, for the students to get too comfortable, which means getting lazy and sometimes presumptive. In short, they think they can walk all over me if I give the impression of being too friendly too soon.
All that being said, though, I want to dress like myself and I want to be myself when I'm teaching. As a teacher I am playing a role, enhancing certain elements of myself, but I want to be as true to myself and as honest with my students as I can be. So I do relax after a couple of weeks and start to experiment with outfits.
It is here that I break with my peers. I know many who go through a similar process of laying down the law at first and then relaxing as the semester progresses (and they often reflect this process in their clothing, too), but there are just as many who retain the same level of formality or business-like attire throughout the entire semester. One fellow graduate teaching assistant (male) would not teach without wearing dress pants, a buttondown shirt, and a tie. Some students have similar ideas about how teachers should appear. In fact, on a recent student evaluation I had a female student write that I should dress more professionally because my outfits were often distracting.
Despite these differences within my department and my field, I truly have a lot of freedom. During the training course when I began this job, which was several years ago now, the director of the First-Year Writing Program, the program I was entering into, told us that how we dressed was mostly a personal decision, one we could determine as part of developing our teaching personae. Her only recommendation was that we not expose ourselves to the students. And although students do have certain expectations of instructors based on their prior experience, they seem much more willing to accept experimentation from instructors in the liberal arts like myself. Just as there is a stereotype of the buttoned-down professor with tweed and elbow patches or the plain teacher in glasses, there is a counterstereotype of English teachers, as well as art teachers and music teachers, as hippies and artists and free spirits.
But others have less freedom: instructors in other departments, people who work in other fields altogether, people who must wear uniforms.
I know how I deal with this issue. I use my own best judgment for what will be appropriate (while teaching, this frequently means something that won't distract too much from the topic at hand) and sashay through my life with the confidence that I look good and no one can stop me from doing so. But how do others deal with this isssue in their lives? How concerned are you with appropriateness in dressing yourself on a regular basis? How do you work your personal style into the workplace? Does it cause problems? Or does it bring positive attention?
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
More Dress-Up Fun.
I'm back after a brief break, and I'm sporting a look from the Dress Another Wardrobe_Remixer Challenge. This outfit is designed by nemrešpobjećodnedjelje.
I was a little nervous about it at first. The color combination of the skirt and shoes, though fairly subdued, is not one I would have thought of on my own, and the skirt fits oddly. I bought it because I love the colors, the plaid, and the fabric, but it's too small for me to wear like a normal skirt. I have to wear it as an empire waist skirt because of the waist size. And because of the style of the skirt, this means I'll look poufy and thicker than usual. So it took me a little while to get used to the idea of wearing this and to visualize it properly.
Generally, I do envision an outfit before I put it on. It's rare for me to just put something on and have a sudden realization that it looks cool. One thing this wardrobe_remix project is leading me to is the belief that I should try that technique of surprising myself more often.
What really makes the outfit, as far as I'm concerned, though, are the shoes.
The shoes, designed by Miss Bunny, are also one major reason it took me so long to wear this outfit. I don't quite feel comfortable wearing these shoes to teach my regular classes. I want people to see my shoes, but I don't want them to distract from class, so most days have been off-limits for this outfit. I am teaching a class today, but I figured it would be okay to wear the shoes because 1) I'm teaching a senior level college course today instead of freshmen and sophomores and 2) because we'll be sitting down around a conference table for this class intead of my standing in front of the class and leading discussion or lecturing from there. That makes my feet less of a focal point.
I have one more outfit waiting in the wings from the Wardrobe_Remix challenge, which I'll post when it gets worn (it also involves these shoes), and then I'll be back to thinking for myself. Unless someone else wants to style me, that is.
I was a little nervous about it at first. The color combination of the skirt and shoes, though fairly subdued, is not one I would have thought of on my own, and the skirt fits oddly. I bought it because I love the colors, the plaid, and the fabric, but it's too small for me to wear like a normal skirt. I have to wear it as an empire waist skirt because of the waist size. And because of the style of the skirt, this means I'll look poufy and thicker than usual. So it took me a little while to get used to the idea of wearing this and to visualize it properly.
Generally, I do envision an outfit before I put it on. It's rare for me to just put something on and have a sudden realization that it looks cool. One thing this wardrobe_remix project is leading me to is the belief that I should try that technique of surprising myself more often.
What really makes the outfit, as far as I'm concerned, though, are the shoes.
The shoes, designed by Miss Bunny, are also one major reason it took me so long to wear this outfit. I don't quite feel comfortable wearing these shoes to teach my regular classes. I want people to see my shoes, but I don't want them to distract from class, so most days have been off-limits for this outfit. I am teaching a class today, but I figured it would be okay to wear the shoes because 1) I'm teaching a senior level college course today instead of freshmen and sophomores and 2) because we'll be sitting down around a conference table for this class intead of my standing in front of the class and leading discussion or lecturing from there. That makes my feet less of a focal point.
I have one more outfit waiting in the wings from the Wardrobe_Remix challenge, which I'll post when it gets worn (it also involves these shoes), and then I'll be back to thinking for myself. Unless someone else wants to style me, that is.
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