Whether it’s PeeWee Herman or Urkel, the media and fashion businesses have had a limited grasp on what’s often referred to as “geek” or “nerd chic.” In its September issue, Women’s Wear Daily devoted three pages to “the new nerd.” Bulky, over-sized suits in bold colors and mismatched prints, cropped pants, clunky heels, jangly accessories and those giant, ugly twee glasses dominated.
Within the tech world itself, the old meme is that men dress in ill-fitting mom jeans (“Jeans highlighting the flat curvature of the 40+ buttocks, according to the Urban Dictionary”) or cargo pants; movie, comic and/or insider tech joke t-shirts or hoodies; and ugly shoes or flip flops. For women it’s… Well, pretty much same.
But for some reason, 2012 is the year of noticing how geeks actually dress. Or more importantly how some present themselves and how others think they should be presented. While the stereotype of badly clothed programmers still occasionally rings true, the new zeitgeist isn’t accurate either. Tech, after all, is broad and many people in it are creatives. There has to be a spark of originality somewhere.
Not long ago, the New York Times spotlighted a handful of Silicon Valley women in “Techies Break a Fashion Taboo.” Unfortunately, it was one of the dullest pieces I’ve ever read about getting dressed. The women profiled were mostly Chanel, Oscar de la Renta and Jimmy Choo-wearing executives with King Kong salaries. They were presented as proof that someone fashionable could also be taken seriously, in fact that their sense to style was a near act of rebellion in a sea of khakis. Is the tech world that regressive?
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