My husband is off at a conference this week, hob-nobbing on behalf of his employer. We talked on the phone this morning, and he started talking about how the dress of the other engineers ranged from shorts and t-shirts to three-piece suits.

I had this thought that there ought to be a "fashion report" from each conference. That way you can gauge how formal the conference is and can therefore dress appropriately. (Conferences in Hawaii, of course, only accept shorts and loud shirts covered with plumeria and palm trees.)

It's very interesting to me, having gone to only a handful of conferences, how sharply the dress can differ based on conference type (in my experience, engineers of varying disciplines have varying levels of formality, which differs from the geophysicists), venue, and individual characteristics of the people involved. It would be helpful to have some guidelines!

Then there would be the potential to classify the best-dressed as well as the most gregarious wardrobe faux pas for a particular conference. (I can think of one person I saw at the Hawaii conference last summer. I don't think he could have been any more stereotypical had he been a cartoon!)

I know it's not as glamorous as the Academy Awards, but where is the Joan Rivers of the technical world?!