posted 2007/03/17 at 22:59
Apart from a few of my pre-teen years when I let the groupthink of the private school I went to get to me, my wardrobe has always been far more functional than stylistic. When I was younger my parents did all my clothes shopping for me at K-Mart (believe me, that made those first months in private school with all those rich kids real fun), although these days I do clothes shopping in a variety of places. I still shop for bottoms at department stores -- mostly yoga pants, since I stopped wearing jeans once I got into dancing video games -- but my tops come from a variety of places, both online and brick-and-mortar. That being said, rare is the day that I'm not wearing some kind of t-shirt.
I thought about buying some fancier clothes when I first started grad school, as I noticed that the other English TAs tended to "dress up" on days when they were teaching. (At least at the start of the semester.) I decided in the end to keep with my old style of dress, though, because my style of teaching places very high importance on my students being able to be as comfortable as possible while I stretch their minds and challenge them, and I'm certainly more comfortable in a t-shirt and yoga pants than anything else. I figured that I should model this for my students by keeping my old wardrobe from my undergraduate days. (This also helped me subvert the traditional teacher-student power dynamic, another important element of my teaching style.)
That being said, these days I'm kind of thinking about expanding my wardrobe. I don't know if it's a function of my age or just being tired of my wardrobe being so limited or looking at Ariel's photos of her own eclectic mix-and-match wardrobe and being kind of jealous, but I'd kind of like to get some more things to hang in my closet here. The problem I'm having (aside from being reluctant to spend much money until I get a job) is that when I look for the kinds of clothes I'm interested in online, most of the Websites I'm finding haven't been updated for at least three years. I have no idea what's up with that, although maybe it's the universe's subtle way of telling me that my fashion sense is seriously outdated.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon