George Will attributes the decline of Western civilization to 501’s.  While the blogosphere this he’s “havin’ a laugh” (as the English say), I give Will credit for offering a provocative argument about how our norms of dress affect our social conduct.

Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances. But the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.

For a conservative, Will’s doing some serious critical analysis here!  I’m partial to jeans and a dress shirt as my professional uniform.  I have been since my mid twenties.  As I near my 40’s, I do feel a pressure to reach for the dress pants over the jeans, particularly if I’m going to be interacting with peers.

I don’t think I wear jeans to signal “indifference to appearances,” although do we ever fully know ourselves 😉  I think I do it to convey a sense of approachability and informality.  As a university professor, and maybe as a person, I’m uncomfortable with conveying a sense of elevated status through wardrobe.  Through wearing jeans, I’m critiquing received power structures and signaling to students that authority should be earned through interaction and not “read” through wardrobe.

But, let’s give George Will some props here.  Dress is a form of text and we’re becoming increasingly detached from our cloting choices. A few years back it was trendy for students to wear t-shirts with the words “porn star” enblazoned on them.

I remember one of my best and most courteous students wearing a “porn star” shirt to class one day. Did that student give though to how her wardrobe would be read as a signifier? Is the “porn star” shirt signifying rebellion? irony? insecurity? What?

What do you think?  Do you think dress establishes norms?  What would be the consequences of reverting back to formal dress as a marker of status.