By Emily Gale, Matthew Jones & Victor Szabo
The following fashion ethnography was co-authored by my PhD cohort at the University of Virginia and prepared under the influence of/in reference to Brenda Dickson’s Meet My Cat Snow (see below). While not exactly a piece of sentimental musical ephemera, we wrote this ethnography just over ten years ago and thus it makes me feel a little sentimental.
A remarkable deficit of fashion plagues modern academia, one that is reflected in the stereotypical image of the dowdy music theorist or musicologist. Such caricatures are both constructed and performed by members of the respective societies, particularly those of the older vanguard. Picture, for example, the rumpled suits and disheveled or outmoded hairstyles of many of our esteemed colleagues. Such a look is characteristic of traditional musicological fashion and style.
While a growing trend towards ethnographic research methods can be found in many of the individual papers at AMS/SMT, little attention has been paid to another crucial element of the 21st century conference-going experience: a passion for style (and fashion). This project paves the way for further consideration of certain performative aspects of academic conferences, and may participate with other work in anthropology, social science, performances studies, and theater as well as the history of costume and fashion. According to Susan Thomas, younger generations of scholars seem to have higher fashion expectations than their senior colleagues. Not only are younger scholars expected to deliver perfect prose and provocative postulations in their presentations, they are also expected to deliver persuasive fashion and style. Our observations during the 2008 AMS/SMT meeting in Nashville, TN support such a claim.
One’s role at the conference—be it senior scholar, junior faculty, student presenter, or interested observer—directly influences decisions regarding fashion and style. Jada Watson, a first year PhD student, identified the fashion pressure that she felt in preparing for this year’s conference. Watson’s experience differed, perhaps, from other younger scholars because of the fact that she herself was presenting a paper. In a pre-conference consultation, Watson revealed her fashion anxieties and requested advice concerning her choice of blouse. Gale’s feedback may have influenced the resulting fashion presentation on Saturday night’s panel. Watson admitted that she felt pressure to be conservatively fashionable. For this conference, she wore a suit—a pinstriped suit from Ann Taylor Loft. She also decided to go with the bold crimson puffed sleeved blouse. This is a classic look.
Carrie Allen, a sixth-year PhD candidate at The University of Georgia, expressed rather different feelings concerning conference style. During a conversation Saturday afternoon, she shared her thoughts on how to achieve “that look.” Allen offered herself as an example of appropriately stylish conference attire. Unlike Watson, Allen did not present a paper at AMS, which liberated her from the conservative expectations of musicological fashion. The “Carrie Allen Look” normally consists of a tension between a bold showpiece against a subtle backdrop. Typically, Allen chooses exciting, though not revealing, tops or sweaters paired with a more traditional trouser. Allen’s shoes are often the most dramatic component of the look, and she feels that an exciting shoe can “make or break a conference look.” On Saturday, Allen wore a daring turquoise number with three-quarter length sleeves atop a cream blouse and khaki pants. Chunky jewelry—a necklace and contrasting earrings—added pizzazz to her ensemble, while a pair of gilded heels with sequins completed the look. Allen insisted that we note her outfit would have been much less bold had she been presenting.
Senior scholar and SMT Chair, Justin London, has created a fashion sensation at SMT meetings. Yale PhD student Jay Summach noted his extraordinary disappointment on the first day of the meeting when London was spotted sporting a simple turtleneck! Known for his scrupulous sense of fashion, especially relative to the longstanding tradition of suit and tie that haunts male SMT members, London is usually seen playing against the music theorist fashion tradition by wearing pastel-colored dress shirts, elaborate bowties, and printed wool sweater vests.
When searching for “that look,” our subjects have found that their eyes are drawn to the fashion they like. Fred Maus was overheard describing the importance of sweaters for his unique look. He also emphasized the significance of one’s choice in shoes. Here, black “e-thletic” shoes support both his arches and his commitment to equity and ethics in fashion.
Often, presenters’ looks transport the audience into the worlds of their paper topics. During her paper titled “The Damnation of Mignon,” Carolyn Abbate sported a fetching black, red, and white scarf, tucked sassily into her belt which she wore slightly above waistline on the outside of her sweater; a blue flower at the neckline added an unexpected though nonetheless delightful doucement. Appropriately, Abbate’s attentiveness to lightness in fashion, as well as in opera, left multiple audience members in a state of wonder. Her careful attention to stylistic detail closely mirrored the extraordinary content of her paper while maintaining a subtle tension with her no-frills delivery. In Abbate’s case, medium, message, style, and fashion dissolve into an undifferentiated, virtuosic performance.
Several other AMS/SMT presenters achieved looks that coordinated with, as well as against, their paper topics. In the case of early modernist Martha Feldman, her brocade bell-sleeved jacket appeared consonant with her equally busy presentation. Jeff Kallberg’s traditional l’habit noir mirrored his conservative approach to “Chopin’s Music Box.” And yet while some might assume that the dress of an early modernist might not be so very modern, the magic generated by Bonnie Gordon’s ensemble could hardly be called artificial.
We would like to account for our own fashion choices, as they certainly played a constitutive role in this year’s overall “look,” and the resultant discussions about fashion during the conference. During a walk back to the convention centre, a group of Canadian graduate students commented on Gale’s sense of conference fashion, which was described by a male colleague as “eclectic.” A female music theorist noted that “eclectic” was a very masculine way to describe her outfits. To clarify, the male colleague affirmed that he intended the term as a compliment. Gale informed them that Value Village contributed to her “eclectic” look. A high-waisted vintage wool pencil skirt was chosen to accentuate her mustard-colored wedge heels. Gale’s look confirms that shoes are a very important part of fashion.
Jones’s personal style alternates between deconstructed preppy and just-rolled-out-of-bed, a characterization reflected in his fashion decisions for AMS. On Saturday, Jones received a stamp of approval for his choice of patterned sweater vest, pin-striped shirt, and diagonally striped tie by one of our fashion informants, Watson. Upon seeing Jones outside the book display, Watson pronounced “I love… your sweater.” The moment was very dramatic.
On Sunday, Szabo particularly noted the importance of practicality in fashion. Though most other musicologists practically attuned to the much colder weather in Nashville on Sunday morning, Szabo decided to favor a stylish look over comfort when selecting a solid brown short-sleeved polo for his “dressed-down” look for the final day of the conference. His visible discomfort while shopping for boots near the convention center provoked a local to comment, “aren’tcha freezin’ in that?” This woman, wearing a black felt coat, giant knitted hat, bleached jeans, and tennis shoes, clearly valued comfort over fashion.
While it may seem superfluous to consider the role of fashion in an academic climate, the role of the presenter—including the clothes they wear—constitutes an important part of the conference text. Particular expectations and traditions make up an often-ignored set of subcultural practices that academics have long taken for granted. Whether these expectations result from the exercise of power, hidden deep beneath the intellectual content of an AMS/SMT conference, or from the thoughtless iteration of traditions handed down through generations of scholars, at the close of this year’s AMS/SMT, we can only surmise that originality in fashion will transform the stereotyped image of music scholars in years to come. Leather, anyone?
Here’s how to cite this blog post:
Gale, Emily, Matthew Jones, and Victor Szabo. “AMS/SMT Fashion Ethnography: AMS = American Musicological Style.” Sentimental Museum of Musical Ephemera. March 31, 2019. Accessed month, date, year, from http://sentimentalmuseum.com/ams-smt-fashion-ethnography/