Over the course of my tenure as Allegheny’s very own fashion columnist, I found that I have missed a certain population of the community: professors. I asked my newspaper team about their faculty fashion icons, and then I started my search.

One thing I feel I always proclaim is that fashion is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. There are so many ways to wear clothing, so many ways to express yourself. When talking with professors, they all seemed to agree with these ideas of fashion: You should dress how you want to and feel pride in what you put on your body. It’s yours and the clothing choices you wear are what help define you.

I asked professors for their tips on fashion.

“Tip one is comfort,” said Professor of English Matthew Ferrence. “And that is both specific to, ‘Am I comfortable today?’ and, ‘Am I comfortable with myself?’ So dressing to be who you are.”
Professor of Communication, Media, and Performance Michael Keeley adopts a similar mentality.

“Just try to be comfortable and clean,” he said.

This was a common theme among all the professors I talked to.

“Comfort,” said Assistant Professor of Communication, Media, and Performance Melody Devries when referring to what guides her fashion choices. “But also personality. I find that we get too stuck in the TikTok trends — don’t doubt me. I am there too, teaching media studies, but I feel like a little bit of extra creativity will get you a long way in feeling excited about yourself. And also engaging with people because people can read a little bit about you via your style. That gets you interacting with people that you want to talk to.”

I asked each professor to give a description of their outfits.

“I’ve got a little bit of a Hawaiian shirt action going on and a rope cap,” Ferrence said. “Ridiculous semi-tinted glasses and some textures with the base layer.”

He described his style as “middle-aged with some awareness” and gave it one out of five stars.

“I think of myself as fashion aspirational, but a little too lazy to put it all together,” Ferrence said.

I think Ferrence did a great job coordinating his colors, and his additional accessory was a nice touch to his overall outfit. His layering of shirts with contrasting colors was an incredible touch and was really pleasing to look at. I would rate his outfit of the day a four out of five stars.

Keeley described his style as casual and cool, rating his outfit a five out of five for comfort but two out of five for fashion.

“A graphic T-shirt, and it has a scooter on it with lemon wheels,” Keeley said when walking through his outfit. “I got this when we were in Italy, on the coast of Italy, where they grow lots of lemons, and so I tend to get shirts that are places that I’ve been where I like or are things that I like or designs that I think are interesting. Then I just have my regular pants, and getting more and more into comfortable socks, which tend to have color instead of just black socks or brown socks. Then sneakers that are comfortable too.”

If I had to give him a rating, I’d give him three out of five stars. This is because although his outfit is very well put together, I wish there was more “pop,” like a pop of color or accessories.

Devries defined her style as very personal and time-curated.

“We’ve got a political T — Heck yeah: ‘No Nazis in Valhalla’,” Devries said. “We’ve got a dress shirt, some jeans, flat shoes and an assortment of metallic jewelry.” She also rated her own outfit a four out of five stars.

Devries did a great job highlighting her personality through her clothing. Her choices in layering and accessories also really won me over. I agree with her rating of four stars. She’s confident, passionate and versatile, and she knows it. Those are all great attributes of an awesome outfit.

All of the professors had great style and a wonderful understanding of what makes good fashion. Make sure when you get dressed, you are dressing for yourself in what makes you comfortable and happy. Also, when you see someone with good style, comment on it. Compliment them — they may really enjoy it and maybe you can make a new friend.