I sat in class wearing open-toed Birkenstocks, dark blue Fila sweatpants and a light gray crewneck portraying four dogs crossing Abbey Road. The crewneck reads “The Beagles.” A third of the students in this class are dressed like me in their sweat-somethings. The rest in jeans and a t-shirt. No exception. Professor Peter Laufer stands in front of us wearing his latest outfit, one surely seen before but new to these eyes, a “counterpoint to the slovenly reality that is UO,” he said.
Peter Laufer is the James Wallace Chair Professor in Journalism at the School of Journalism and Communication, but equally important and quite possibly equally as discussed, he is always dressed exceptionally.
This class, Laufer wore a blue suit with thin white stripes, or maybe a white suit with blue stripes — the evidence is inconclusive. Either way, it made an impression. The suit was underlined by a white dress shirt, standard brown dress shoes and a large yellow sun hat.
“I'm showing appropriate respect for myself, for the position, for the students and for the colleagues. This is not summertime at the beach,” he said. He got his outfit from “the McDonald’s of menswear,” Men’s Wearhouse, but managed to fool us.
The very next class, Andrew Wilson filled in for Laufer. Laufer’s research assistant and PhD candidate, Wilson wore black pants, a dark knit sweater, a Nike baseball cap and black Vans. Although he wore something Laufer would not wear to a lecture he was hosting, Wilson was dressed well and looked professional, capturing our attention in the same way.
As a masters student, Wilson said he wore jeans and hoodies until he graduated in 2018 and transitioned into being a “full time part-timer” teaching for two schools in the California Community College circuit.
“I wore what I think most people would associate as being more of a traditional attire for an instructor, like a collared shirt tucked in,” Wilson said. “And that was because I was 24, 25. A relatively young person wanting to appear a little bit more professional.”
Wilson said he stuck with this style for his three years in California before moving to Eugene and finding a balance between shorts with sandals and his previous attire.
“Now that I've gotten a little older, I'm a little bit farther away from the students that I work with here in terms of age,” Wilson said. “I'm more confident in just my understanding of the material. I'm a lot less worried about the way that I present myself and more worried about, ‘Am I communicating these ideas effectively?’”
Professor Laufer believes in dressing the part but won’t force others to dress the way he views “the part.”
“I wouldn't profess to tell someone else how to dress, but I believe that for all of us who are in this world, in this profession, in this hustle that we should dress up a notch at least,” Laufer said. “You also can always pull off your tie, throw your jacket over your shoulder, roll up your sleeves and you're not looking fancy anymore.”
Laufer showed me some pictures of this in action. One photo depicted him on the Afghan-Pakistan border with the sleeves of a shirt his wife made him rolled up, blue jeans on and in a pair of boots. Not the look those familiar with him through class are used to.
“You can talk to somebody no matter how you're dressed. If you're proficient at engaging them and transcend your attire, you could be wearing torn jeans and a dirty t-shirt, and talk to Donald Trump or Joe Biden, depending on how you carry yourself,” Laufer said.
Laufer said he doesn’t always dress up like how he does when he teaches, which is frankly hard to believe. His outfits and style are always extravagant and even, admittedly, a little overdone to attain an element of caricature. If Laufer came into work wearing jorts and a Nirvana tee, maybe he’d look like the rest of his students. While the odds of that are relatively low, it surely would be quite the spectacle.
Clothing communicates a message whether intentional or not. That message could be claiming respect for oneself or showing it back to your peers, and Laufer and Wilson take both sentiments to heart in their academic fashion choices.
“Everything is political from the clothes that we wear to the things that we say,” Wilson said. “I think wanting to be taken seriously — and whatever that means for people, if that means dressing up a little bit more than your usual, to give yourself that extra oomph during your presentation — that helps for presenters.”