Put a Bird On It

Today, once again, I faced the eternal struggle. What does one wear to deliver a math colloquium? I could spend hours riffing on this topic. It's always a struggle to find that middle ground between sexy and frumpy. I don't want to be all va-va-voom, but I also don't want to dress in some shroud attempting to hide the fact that I am, indeed, a woman.

Sexuality aside, there's this strange metric regarding coolness of attire and credibility as a mathematician. We, I, everyone, seems to instantly believe what someone is saying if they're dressed like a hobo, but have immense skepticism if they look like they just walked out of Urban Outfitters. Is the idea that we assume anybody who takes time getting dressed is wasting time that could have been spent on math? Or do we just assume that geniuses are like honey badgers...they no care.



On this extreme Friday, I went for the denim J. Crew pencil skirt, and this cunning mullet-cut crop-top with little birds on it.



Does this outfit make my brain look big?

<3