The organizers of the Oxford conference sent out an email telling the participants that the conference discourages “power dressing.” I only hope this doesn’t mean I will have to spend a week surrounded by unkempt feet in flip-flops and beige shorts.
Powerless Dressing
Clarissa's Blog 
leave the suit of armour behind and, as for the ball and chain, that’s for the fifty shades folks, were all friends here… okay
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I don’t think it means casual. Wikipedia says it was a mode of dress established in the 1970’s and ’80’s in which a women wears a formal jacket and a skirt and some jewelry. Maybe it’s a thing in some places?
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“Powerless” dressing means yoga pants and a t-shirt. Don’t bother with any shoes.
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Man, you are freaking me out. Yoga pants are as bad as the beige shorts which always end up looking horribly crampled.
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Power dressing is ‘business professional’ style suits, in UK speak, or overtly sexualised ‘designer’ ‘latest trend’ attire – given that message, I would expect to dress exactly as normal for a summer conference in the south of England where the temps could be anywhere between 15 and 35 degrees but probably high twenties, in a mix of below-knee summer skirts (no tights though!), linen-mix trousers and well cut not-too-fitted not-low-cut tops in interesting fabrics, along with a light summer cardigan (knit, not stiffer woven fabric) and a nice scarf or pashmina in case it got chilly. I am especially careful about necklines, but I’m fat, middle-aged, “bred for the North” (i.e. do not do well in summer heat) and have a large bust – it’s bad enough having men peering too closely at your name badge, and I’m not too tall, so I’d rather be able to talk to a tall man without the poor chap having to avoid staring down my cleavage. I would expect the males to be wearing mostly shirts (not t-shirts), probably with some ‘novelty’ prints, and jeans or chinos, but I would also expect to see some pretty dire short-and-T-shirt combos on the males – it might be my field, but SOME people seem to regard ‘genitalia covered’ as adequate even for a conference.
Oh, and again this might be field specific, but flip-flops are usually only seen if they are the expensive, classy sandals that just look like that – Birkenstocks are preferred, especially very battered ones. Just DON’T LOOK AT THE FEET, would be my advice! 🙂
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“Just DON’T LOOK AT THE FEET, would be my advice!”
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To me this means “Impress us with what you say and write, not how you look.” Judging people by their appearance, especially in a academic setting, is a character flaw, in my opinion.
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I have a very well-developed aesthetic judgment. It’s hard to talk about the beauty of art when surrounded by ugliness. 🙂
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I never thought that I’d be over-dressed for Oxford, even without a suit …
Right, so, no trouble for Clarissa to find me at the meeting venue then. 🙂
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I just returned from a mathematics conference in Bowling Green Ohio. None of the men wore ties, I think. A few people wore shorts. In general, women dressed more formally than men, but with exceptions. I still believe that judging people by their appearance rather than the content of their work is just wrong. Einstein had the correct idea about how to dress, for the most part.
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As a literary critic, I believe that form is part of content and vice versa. 🙂
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Whenever someone dresses to impress me or others, I believe that they are trying to sell me something worthless, or else are trying to conceal the fact that they have nothing of importance to say. I suppose this comes from growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
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People should dress well and try to look beautiful not in order to impress anybody but to express the joy of living and to contribute beauty to life. For the same reason, people who appreciate the art of good living don’t eat out of cans over the sink but, instead, decorate their own plates of food even when they eat alone.
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