Men Don't Make Passes At...

New York and Company chambray dress shirt

Lauren Moffatt "Daisy Quarters" skirt

Spanx tights

Salvatore Ferragamo Varinas

I noticed from looking through recent blog posts that I have neglected my beloved glasses for the last few months.  I often do this in summer. The lure of the option to wear non Rx sunglasses during sunny, summertime weather is enticing. This particular summer was exceptionally hot with fewer rainy, dreary days than usual. My decision to wear contacts so often made sense because of it. But on Monday, the weather was cloudy and rainy so the act of putting in contacts felt especially taxing. I decided not to bother.

Then I realized that I hadn't yet taught while wearing my glasses this semester, so I found myself conflicted. Should I wear glasses and potentially provoke student commentary about my looks (which makes me uncomfortable)? Do I want to wear contacts all semester? Ultimately I opted for glasses. And I didn't receive any commentary at all about them, thankfully. 

Although I don't think students pay a lot of attention to what I wear/how I look I do realize they pay some attention. I know this from previous comments and compliments over the years, some of which wound up in my official university evaluations from students. Perhaps this kind of thing should have embarrassed me, because it meant my outfit choices that semester were especially remarkable (in the sense that they were worth remarking about)? At any rate, I do wonder if I push too far the limits of sartorial flexibility afforded to academics. In some ways, I guess it mattered both more and less while I was teaching as a graduate student. And maybe I am over-thinking things entirely. I am prone to that.

What do you think? Those of you who are teachers/profs: do you think carefully about making drastic physical changes during terms/semesters/school years in an effort to minimize commentary from students?

Optical Inspirations

Edith Head, Gloria Steinem, and Grace Kelly

I've worn glasses since I was in second grade. Although I also had contacts by the time I was 13, I've always considered spectacles to be a large component of my visual identity. This aspect of personal style became significant to me as a young adult because I was involved in a subculture that valued bookish, studied, intellectualism. It wasn't afraid of being called nerdy.

 Michael Caine and Jean Luc Godard

I was listening to music from the riot grrl and punk scene and began reading feminist theories that taught me about objectification and the politics of looking. 

 

Glasses became a theoretical starting point from where to reject normative standards of beauty.

 Malcolm X and Kurt Cobain 

They allowed me to have more control over not only how I saw the world, but also how I was objectified by the gazes of others. I considered them to provide visual shorthand; a sign that signified my subcultural affiliations and intellectual interests to other likeminded young women and men.

Marilyn Monroe and Shirley Chisholm

Peter Sellers and Marcello Mastroianni

To this day, when I do wear my contacts, it is disorienting. Not only can I see peripherally with the help of the contacts, but I feel like something is missing from my face. I feel naked without my glasses.

 Anouk Aimee

And I continue to draw optical inspiration from the precious and rare bespectacled icons of visual cultural history.