blog happy: academichic

All right, I'll admit it: I am once again in one of my can't-avoid-it, it-always-comes-back-around, interested in Fashion phases again. Immunity to the siren call of the glosses? Don't have it. Copy of the December Harper's Bazaar with the practically teenaged stars of Twilight on the cover? Check!

Truth is, I need something to look at, something that says no THANK you to the diminishing sunshine, the gray moving in, the months ahead of snow. Some way of thumbing my nose at skies that mock "Now there's a good girl, don't forget your mittens and an extra pair of socks inside your snow boots".

My beloved glossies, thick as they are with advertisements, provide sustenance in the visual excitement arena. But I need a chaser, to counter the over the top-ness of it all. Razzmatazz 24-7 is fun, but not sustainable. So I wander the Web ... a clogged thicket of fashion devotees out there with no more credentials than I have in the taste making department. Certainly not a niche I'd ever care to compete in (though I have tried, half-heartedly).

I was happy to stumble upon academichic, a blog about dressing real without being boring, capital B. I don't love every single outfit or accessory on it, but I like the measured approach to what looks truly good on real women in real life. Billing themselves as "three feminist PhD candidates at a Midwest university, on a crusade against the ill-fitting polyester suit of academic yore", this trio is "changing academic fashion, one PhD at a time".

Well that's clever enough, isn't it? Having spent nearly 15 years working and studying in the bastion of higher education, I can say this: unless they are Art profs, female academics are not generally the most interestingly dressed lot going. Their brains are beautiful, yes -- and who among us hasn't fallen in love with a brilliant mind? -- but sartorially speaking the grades are nothing to write home about.

Academichic would like to change that, one ill-fitting tweed blazer and dowdy shoe at a time. I say more power to them. Call it third wave feminism, call it what you will, but they have got some cute outfits going on this blog. No $10,000 dresses, but hey -- does looking like a million bucks mean you have to spend that much? We are too smart to believe that anymore.

Even if we do have a stack of glossies on our nightstands.