Learning, Teaching and Leadership

It’s the first of September and I am going to start the school year with a post that may be seem a little off beat for me. It’s about clothing. Specifically, it’s about the attire that we wear to school or to work.

When I was a young girl, after my parents separated I moved with my Mum back to her homeland of the UK where she could be closer to her family. I have written about this time in my life elsewhere, as it was formative in so many ways. I was enrolled in elementary school near where we lived. Like so many British and colonial schools, wearing a uniform was compulsory.

God, how I hated that uniform! It was comprised of a grey tunic dress, a while button-up shirt, and a tie.

I was a chubby kid and school uniforms are not meant for kids like me. It never fit properly and there was no way to fix that, at least not as far as I was told. It was scratchy, like a burlap sack. Being clumsy and uncoordinated, the worst part of the whole thing was the tie. I had to stand in front of the mirror for hours practising the sailor’s knot that I had to learn to do by myself. God, it was awful.

My mother let me know in no uncertain terms that I was not to complain about the uniform. She worked hard to be able to send me to a good school, and even though it may not have been the very best school, she sacrificed a lot so I could wear that prickly and irritating garb that I hated so much.

Even the labels had to stay because bits of the uniform had to have our names on them. That made it even worse. At least with “home clothes” as we would call them, Mum would carefully remove the sewn-in labels with a small pair of scissors. She did the same for her own clothes. The truth is, neither of us were very good at tolerating them. Oh, how clothes felt so much better without labels!

I spent most of my childhood wearing clothes that were chosen for me. Being a “chunky” girl meant there weren’t as many clothing options available to me. Besides, my clothing choices almost never met with approval because what I liked was too weird or I made choices based on how the clothes felt to me, rather than how they looked. As a result, I was usually told what to wear and there was no discussion about it.

As I grew up and moved through my teen years into my twenties, I started making my own decisions about what to wear. I would almost always gravitate toward black clothes. Not because I was into the goth movement or wanted to make any kind of particular fashion statement, but because they were practical. Firstly, black goes with everything. Secondly, being clumsy means that I spill things on myself far more than is socially acceptable and black clothes seem easier to clean.

I remember being told things by well-meaning folks such as, “But dear, navy would look so much better on you!” Or ‘Black is just so depressing!”

I resisted, in part because I could. I had spent years following other people’s rules about what was and was not acceptable to wear. When I could choose, I gravitated towards soft black clothes without labels or with labels that I could remove easily. To this day, my closet is filled with mostly black, with the odd bit of colour here and there.

When I was an assistant professor, I recall the start of one school year where a previous administrator said to me, “Well, summer is over now. We have to start dressing professionally again.” The ‘we’ in her commentary wasn’t a collective ‘we’. She was directing her comment at me specifically, since I was the only one in the room at the time. The ‘we’ was said in that righteous dowager Countess way that let’s you know that she did not approve and was giving me instructions.

Looking back, there was nothing at all wrong with my summer attire. My clothes were always clean and I was appropriately covered, but you see, that particular officious bureaucrat liked jackets… One always had to wear a jacket to be considered professional. Of course, the occasional twin set was acceptable, but only if it was some typically feminine shade of blue or pink, or maybe violet. I had spent the summer in short-sleeved shirts and trousers, which is pretty standard for me in the summer.

I don’t mind jackets and in fact, I wear them often. What I objected to was someone telling me, yet again, that my clothing choices were inadequate. That I was inadequate because of what I chose to wear… that in order to be successful, one needs to conform.

Well, let me tell you, wearing a uniform as a six-year old didn’t make me any better of a student in elementary school, just as wearing mostly black as an adult most of the time doesn’t make me depressing. I spent years, decades even, trying to accept that if clothes didn’t feel good that it was somehow my fault and I should just learn to live with it.

Now that I have achieved some modicum of success in my career, let me share a secret… I do my best work when I’m comfortable with what I’m wearing. When I don’t have to fuss with ill-fitting clothes, sharp labels or irritating seams, I’m less distracted. That frees up my mental, emotional, and physical energy to do my best work. Maybe you feel the same way? Let me be clear: clothes matter, but they don’t matter in the same way to everyone. 

This school year, I invite you to do two things. First, wear the clothes that make you feel good, whatever that means for you (without breaking any decency laws, of course). Second, when it comes to others’ clothes, keep your opinions to yourself. Bite your tongue and just don’t talk about it… not to the person’s face and not behind their back. Just get on with your own business. Say to yourself, “My job is to accept and appreciate others for who they are.” Full stop. Unless someone asks you for fashion advice, then keep your mouth shut. Maybe, just maybe, that person’s clothing choices are part of what helps them bring their best self to work or to school. If you let them be, you might just be helping to create an environment where they can thrive.

I intend to bring my best self to school this year and I’m going to do it with my own kind of flair. You’ll probably see me roaming around campus in wearing mostly black most of the time. Whatever I wear is going to soft and cozy free of those instruments of torture known as labels. Dress for success? Damn right I will. It’s going to be glorious!

References

Eaton, S. E. (2020). Challenging and critiquing notions of servant leadership: Lessons from my mother. In S. E. Eaton & A. Burns (Eds.), Women Negotiating Life in the Academy: A Canadian Perspective (pp. 15–23). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3114-9_2 

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Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a Professor and Research Chair in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer.