Another take on my perennial favourite social convention, the dress code: Signalling (on Cosmic Variance).

This instance of the pro-dress-code argument is so lame I can hardly be bothered to discuss it (“Everyone should dress so that they wouldn’t embarrass my mother”), but I welcome people making good fun out of it. So, like I already said back in the day, dressing up is about signalling status – but why do we have to drag aesthetics into this? Can’t we simply wear t-shirts that show our current bank balance, grade average, or pictures of our model-grade SOs? Why the silken suicide utility? I might add that signalling status is actually counterproductive in academia, since discussions are not supposed to be guided by “the guy with the necktie said it, so it must be true”-type decisions. In the long run, I hope that the belief in suit == authority will fade away, helped along by the tireless work of Chinese tailors flooding the market with cheap high quality evening dress. Still, I’m not holding my breath (nor am I as religious about the “don’t dress to impress” rule in real life, being the unprincipled cynic that I am).