Geek Chic

Before my husband and I ever started dating I used to think that for a guy in university-he dressed pretty well.  Any time he had to dress up, he always seemed very put together and even though his day to day uniform consisted of jeans, a t-shirt and a hoody, they always fit him well and seemed relatively coordinated. 

It wasn’t until we were dating that I found out he just happened to have a very fashionable uncle who just happened to be the exact same size as he was who just happened to tire of his clothes and hand them down to his nephew. The other factor that helped with the coordination was the fact that my husband rarely ventured outside of a few main colours-black, blue, green and grey-something I never really noticed until I went through his closet. 

It seems that in the Geek world, fashion isn’t really something they think about too often from what I’ve seen.  This isn’t to say that I’m a slave to it either-I’m not.  I take pride in what I wear and like many girls, I love clothing but the only name brands in my closet are there because they were extremely discounted. But if you look at Geek fashion on its own terms, there really is a whole new world to explore.

The penultimate item in Geek fashion really is the Geek shirt.  There are hundreds of forms depending on the type of Geek that the person is.  You have your classic Star Wars shirts, your computer geek shirts, your video game shirts and your D&D type shirts just to name a few-all of which I believe are in my husband’s t-shirt drawer. 

Many of these shirts are almost as elitist and strange as some people find high fashion to be, in that only true geeks will understand what in the world they mean. If you are lacking a basic knowledge of binary or chemistry or video game history you will end up standing around looking confused if you happen to read these shirts as they pass you by in the street while sending geeks into a fit of laughter.  Thankfully, if you were to ask a geek what their shirt meant they would most likely be only too happy to tell you, in detail, with examples….and references.   

There’s also a whole range of geeky accessories should a geek wish to venture outside of the geek shirt.  You can get D20 jewelry, ties with your favourite video game characters (or ties that look like they were “programmed” into a 32 bit system when your favourite video game characters were introduced) and really the list is endless.

Another form of geek fashion stems from dressing up as a favourite character from TV or movies. (For the extremists there are entire conventions devoted to creating exact replica costumes of characters and celebrating all things geeky-something they call cos-play-something I know very little about and frankly, frightens me a little.) My husband, having loved the Indiana Jones movies for years has a complete Indiana Jones outfit, which thankfully he generally saves for a last minute Halloween costume if needed.  He was actually known around our university for wearing the hat around-although being 6’4” certainly helped with that easy recognition as well.  My husband also has a collection of Hawaiian shirts which contrasts with his usual base colours to the extreme.  I’m fairly certain he wears because he likes them but I’m sure that it doesn’t hurt that one of his favourite characters off the regrettably cancelled show Firefly (which now has an entire geek cult following) also was seen in nothing but. Imitation after all is the sincerest form of flattery isn’t it?

I’m not saying all geeks adhere to these fashions, but there seems to be an awful lot of geeky shirts to back up my claims and I’ve known a few self proclaimed geeks in my day.  Of course there’s a whole new “geek chic” trend, rocked most notably by Justin Timberlake that I’ve never really seen “true” geeks wear-at least in the circles I run in. My husband would never rock a sweater vest and thick black rimmed glasses, even if Captain Picard himself asked him to.  (Yes, I’m aware that Captain Picard is a fictional character. It just adds to the point that this would NEVER happen.) I’m not quite sure what I think of this look to be entirely honest anyway. Is it a compliment to all the geeks out there that those normally deemed very fashionable are pulling from the classic geek clothing stereotype or is it just that they think they’re so cool that they can make even that look cool?  I’m probably over-thinking this way too much.  My husband must be rubbing off on me.

 To close I have to tell you that I’ve been known to throw on one of my husband’s geek shirts from time to time-around our apartment anyway…when I’m pretty sure nobody will be seeing me.  I think he enjoys seeing his wife geek it up a little now and then. Besides, they’re really comfortable! On the flip side, I recently bought my husband a bright red sweater which while he keeps saying it’s really bright (although not half as much so as his Hawaiian shirts) he does wear it….probably mostly because I lay out his clothes in the morning though.