Standing a mere 5’5 tall, the fashion runway, for me, is nothing but a mythic reality—a locale that invites my imagination but never beckons my walking presence. So, alas, I am forced instead to turn my attentions to what I have come to call my pseudo-runways: coffee shops, art galleries, Sunday afternoon promenades, the classroom. And with the beginning of a new school year I am again faced with the daily question of “What should I wear today?” And by extension, I also am asking myself the question, “Who do I want to be?”

Our clothes and outward appearance do much to create an impression on others and also to signify who we are, and when it comes to the classroom one has to find the perfect balance (not unlike traipsing around in Christian Louboutins) between fashion expression and academic integrity, between form and content. The classroom runway is a narrower catwalk than others, and the key to dressing for the classroom is to appear as if you aren’t trying too hard (or at all) lest others begin to think that you’re an intellectual lightweight, or worse, a philistine.

In the study of aesthetics (and I’m generalizing here) the question of form in relation to its content is one of the most pervasive. Does the way something look affect, symbolize, signify, influence, disguise, falsify, or perhaps even, change what it is? Can we, or rather, should we judge a book by its cover? Despite the answer to this normative question, there is arguable proof that we do make moral, ethical, and substantive judgments based on appearances, especially where fashion is concerned. Our clothing choices allow us a forum of self-expression just as much as it impresses on others who we are. Inversely, the way others perceive our fashion choices reflects the cultural and societal mores at-large. (Take the recent brouhaha over a certain Hillary’s hint of cleavage during a talk-show appearance, for example.)

The classroom setting, however, complicates this fashion-as-identity assertion. The Academy, a hallowed ground for black turtlenecks, chunky eyewear, and tweed jackets (and I don’t mean Chanel), has a long history of fashion aversion. The academic world has unofficially deemed fashion consciousness a superficial endeavor. Why spend time at Neiman Marcus when Harvard’s Widener Library has all the books anyone could ever attempt to read, and it’s free? Why peruse Vogue when Norton’s Anthology of Literature so abundantly provides keys to understanding postmodernism. Furthermore, the recent trend in academic fashion is to create an equalizing playing field, whereby the professor dresses like the students, and the students dress like, well, students. The intent behind this is to absolve the classroom of any hierarchical structure, but, as my professor, Seanna Oakley said in a recent class, “You can still be a tyrant even if you’re wearing Dockers.”

There always has been a performative element to the classroom dynamic as well. And, like all professional theatrical performances, costume is a key component to the overall theatrical effect—so too in academia. One of my favorite professors from my undergraduate days at the University of Iowa wore the same green sweater (or was it blue?) every day the first half of the semester only to switch to his blue sweater (or was it green?) at midterms to finish out the course. We students had many a late-night dorm session pondering Professor Coolidge’s fashion statement. Was he attempting to assert the frivolity of fashion consciousness while heightening the importance of the life of the mind? Was he making a case against the materialism prevalent in a modern capitalistic society? Was he consciously caricaturing himself as an eccentric tenured English professor? Or maybe he just really hated doing laundry. Regardless of the answer, Professor Coolidge’s all-but-varied classroom ensemble provoked discussion, contributed to his academic identity, and became a part of his classroom shtick.

Jean Baudrillard (a contemporary French theorist of the Deleuze/Foucault/ Lacan variety) took up the question of appearances throughout his career, but especially in his 1979 De la séduction. He asserted that “all meaningful discourse seeks to end appearances.” But lest one think that Baudrillard dismisses the realm of objectivity, he then goes on to say “that it is also an impossible undertaking.”

Like it or not, appearances matter, and in my own sweeping stretch of contingent philosophy, fashion matters. Perhaps I over-pontificate as a means to justify my own voracious fashion consumption, but at the end of the day, fashion isn’t going anywhere. It’s here to stay: in the magazines and on the runways for sure, but also in the coffee shops, on the sidewalks, and in the classrooms—the pseudo-runways of we mortal beings.