| Valerie Steele, chief curator of the Fashion | | | | red-taffeta dress. Some, however, use their |
| Institute of Technology and editor of Fashion | | | | shoes to distinguish themselves from the grey |
| Theory: The Journal of Body, Dress & Culture, | | | | herd of job applicants. |
| told the Chronicle of Higher Education that, | | | | |
| in her opinion, "Academics are still the | | | | Andrew Ross, NYU's American Studies' program |
| worst-dressed middle-class occupational group | | | | director, is famous for the clothes he wore |
| in America." With a challenge like that, | | | | to accompany his wedge-heeled suede shoes to |
| professors fight back as hard as they can. | | | | the Modern Language Association's 1991 |
| Princeton University's Elaine Showalter, | | | | meeting. Jane Gallop, professor of English |
| feminist literary critic, confessed to Vogue | | | | and comparative literature at the University |
| magazine that she had a passion for fashion, | | | | of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, coordinates her |
| and that she defended her Ph.D. dissertation | | | | fashion statements to her intellectual work, |
| in turquoise boots from Bologna. "For years," | | | | as the lecture when she wore cowboy boots and |
| she openly admitted, "I've been trying t make | | | | suede fringed pants to discuss Western |
| the life of the mind coexist with a day at | | | | civilization. |
| the mall." | | | | |
| | | | And some who work in universities find that |
| But some, in fighting the widely held | | | | the shoes they wear make long-standing |
| stereotype that professors only wear old | | | | alliances on campus. Diane Ballard first |
| dirty tweeds and flat shoes, may take their | | | | joined the staff of the University of |
| sartorial commitment too far. Emily Toth, | | | | Tennessee in 1969, and the first time she met |
| professor of English and women's studies at | | | | Joe Johnson (later to become UT president) |
| Louisiana State University, who moonlights as | | | | she was wearing red and blue shoes with a |
| Ms. Mentor for the Chronicle, confessed that | | | | blocky heel, a high-cut tongue, and a |
| she once saw a woman interview for an | | | | undulating swirling pattern in which the red |
| academic job in cowboy boots and a | | | | overlaid the blue. |