Hi, Professors! This is Karen Gonzalez Rice, art historian, professor and life coach for academics. You are listening to “The Good Enough Professor,” the show that reimagines academic life for overwhelmed professors. Let's create a more supportive, more humane academia, one small, intentional choice at a time. Listen on for how we can do this together.
Karen: I am so delighted to welcome Arti Sandhu to the podcast today. Arti is the fashion professor behind the Instagram fashion blog @sideways_toupee. She is associate professor in the fashion program in the School of Design at the University of Cincinnati. I have followed Arti for a while, but I think we first connected because I asked you for a reference for an article you mentioned in a caption—this was a while ago—and you actually responded and sent me the reference. This is the stuff of academic friendships right there!
Arti: I remember that.
Karen: I'm so happy to get to talk with you today about how you navigate academia and everyday fashion and Instagram, and how you meld fun and play across images your work as an academic and your life as a human. So welcome, Arti!
Arti: Thank you for having me.
Karen: So please share a little bit about yourself.
Arti: Sure. I'm Arti. I am presently in Cincinnati, which is kind of interesting. If you'd asked me maybe 20 years ago if I'd be here, I would have never have imagined. I have a background in fashion design from NIFT in Delhi, and, you know, had all these intentions of becoming a designer when I was in college, and then did my graduate degree in the UK, and somehow accidentally—and I think this is the case for many people in academia, not all, but quite a few in the design space—where I accidentally fell into teaching design studio in New Zealand. And I mean, if you're offered a beginning teaching role in New Zealand, you'd take it, right, which I did, and I really enjoyed it. And so that was more than 20 years ago. From there, I moved to the US to teach in Chicago, and then now at UC, I think as maybe other folks will kind of relate to an academia, I feel very huge imposter complex of being here, imposter syndrome for being here. Because really, my kind of preparatory trajectory was never really to be an academic. I've just cobbled it along. So over the years, I began writing about Indian fashion. My research is really looking at contemporary fashion in India, though it's…again, I'm at a kind of a weird cusp, and I don't quite know how to resolve it, but my teaching is mostly design studio and recently history and theory with more of a global lens. So that's kind of where I am in terms of my formal academic introduction self, if that helps.
Karen: Fabulous, fabulous. Tell me about @sideways_toupee.
Arti: Well, I know that academics tend to be more on Twitter and LinkedIn, both social media platforms that I just cannot stand for different reasons. But Instagram was always a nice platform. Before there was Flickr, I don't know if you remember, and I think you know, somewhere down my design training, I realized that photography was really interesting to me, and so I used to post quite a lot there. I moved over to Instagram, and had a very curated grid of thing, photographs taken in India and so on, so forth. So I did have a kind of a different life there.
And then I realized, engagement was always low, because I'm not an award-winning photographer! It was more like a personal, indulgent project. But I realized that somewhere along the line, every time I posted an image of myself, it had more engagement than my favorite images, which was kind of weird to me. And then I also, this is me looking at the wave of social media influencers. I was writing about the sari on social media as part of my research, and really getting lulled in by that, and seeing the kind of community that women were forming with each other, and the enjoyment that they were having, and me writing about it, but not actually understanding any of it. I always feel uncomfortable writing about something or researching something that I am separated from.
So, kind of like a dare—this is after the Instagram craze is over, so I'm behind in times or trend—but like a New Year’s dare or resolution, I was like, “I'm going to start my own and post my own outfits.” Because over the years, I think one of the downsides of being a fashion professor is that you do collect a few clothes. I don't know what it's like if you're an art historian, probably more expensive, no Warhols on the wall! So I was like, you know, I’ve got a substantial wardrobe, I could cobble together a few pictures. And so that's where it started. It was kind of quite, it is still quite amateur, but I think it's in the last six months, took on a life of its own, and I'm not quite sure what to do with it.
I'm in that space now where it's very dear to me. I see it as a hobby, as a creative practice. I think I've kind of brought myself to think of…but it also seems quite illegitimate. In this space that I occupy as a fashion professor, you don't get any workload unit points for dressing up or…you know what I mean. So it's sitting in a weird space where I'm not quite sure what to do with it, but it's very enjoyable, and it's I it's changed how I view myself and my body. But it's also had some really bad influences on me.
Karen: I'm curious, what do you mean?
Arti: Well, so the positive. I think it's interesting if I was to look for photographs of myself before I started @sideways_toupee, which was in 2022, first of January, 2022, there are very few photographs of me before that, because I'm the photographer myself of every image and family images. And if they are pictures, for what there is, there’s very few that I personally like, because we're very bad critics of ourselves, right? And so I guess I was never really satisfied, like I saw something in the mirror, but never really saw it in an image. And it could just be vanity or just the inability for the eye of the mirror to kind of reconcile with what the camera sees.
And so when I started taking photographs of myself, I actually liked what I saw. It was quite a boost in terms of body confidence, not that I was kind of not confident or insecure, but had never really seen myself in this way. And again, I don't quite know if it is a hallucination or some like visual mirage—and I'm really interested in that side for more like an academic lens as well—but I was able to separate myself as me in the image, but look at myself as a composition. And being, I guess, a visual person, a visually trained person, and really kind of interested in photography as a side gig, I found being able to look at myself as a composition, I was able to appreciate myself in ways that I couldn't before. So that’s kind of, that's the positive. So in in that sense, I feel less afraid of aging, of my weight, of my size, I feel more confident of what I wear, and I feel satisfied and quite cool. But that's not that I didn't feel those things before, but I just feel them without kind of, you know, I'm not apologetic for that.
But I have spoken to my husband about this yesterday, it has made me want to consume more. And I think that's kind of the, maybe the only downside. But I also don't know if that is just a moment in my life right now that I think many people go through, where your consumption levels kind of go up and down. And some of it could also just be that I'm at a point where it may just be fashion, it may just be me, where there are things that suit me, whereas at some point in my life I didn't think there was anything. So could be a variety of things. But I think it's that need to consume more as a downside, and then also, the amount of time that this thing takes is quite a lot. And I think, you know, even being on LinkedIn and Twitter takes up quite a lot of time for people who are on that, but it's this weird tension of doing something that is so enjoyable but also takes up a lot of time, and there's really no reward for that time in the workplace that I'm in.
Karen: Yeah, that kind of non-traditional outcome or product or ongoing exploration is something I've also been thinking a lot about. I'm finding, especially recently, that I just feel like I'm looking for a different kind of venue, or a different kind of way of exploring the ideas that that I've been living with and around for so long. And that desire to bring it into your work, to bring this into kind of this embodied space, the space of flexibility and a certain kind of freedom. And there's new perspectives on self-representation and understanding that that resonates so deeply with me and also that that kind of work actually does take so much more time.
Arti: Yeah, and if I was a visual artist or a photographer—and I mean, again, I'm not trying to hype myself here—but say if I was someone like Cindy Sherman, for example, who does self-portraiture and photography and is now, after so long, using social media to work through that. And digital enhancement and Photoshop and all of that is a legitimate artistic practice that if she would be in academia, it would also count as legitimate creative outcomes. But I think being this kind of weirdly amateur space, it's just…you're never sure whether it's just a hobby or something kind of quite hokey, if that's the word, and you're not a photographer, you're not an exhibited artist. So you can't suddenly walk up to a venue and say, “I would like to exhibit these.” So do you develop a new narrative and shift who you are? How do you legitimize it within the toolbox that we are given? I did take one stab at it earlier this year, in May, which is kind of interesting, to present a methodology paper, which was kind of an interesting process, and I think I was able to kind of resolve that and successfully do it. But again, I don't know, it's early days.
Karen: I'm curious about what do you think might be possible, or what could you be modeling for other scholars by figuring this out?
Arti: Well, I think one of the things that I've come to realize, and I wish more people were honest about it, is that I don't think everybody enjoys the research that they do. And I also think, especially in the US universe, I think it's the same for the UK and Europe as well, where you're working on funded projects, team projects where you have individuals who have dreams and desires and interests, but they're coming together to work on something that is prestigious and has earned a lot of like grant money or something like that, and are excited and applying for the grant, but then the work itself seems tedious. I see colleagues doing that all the time. You know, they're good, sensible projects where you're designing something for, you know, like a medical purpose, or you're researching something that has social impact. And these are good things. They're needed things. I'm not discounting them. But there's also stuff that people enjoy, and sometimes they don't always come together.
So I think there's somewhere, like joy and enjoyment in research, because, I mean, you're supposed to be quite immersed and obsessive about your research, right? Like for it to be successful. And I feel like the people that I really admire, or whose writing I really admire, you can sense that enjoyment in their work, right in their writing, that they're an expert, not because they had to, but because they live and breathe it. So I think it's there's something there about coming to terms with doing things that are not only good, but also good for you. I don't know that's a full idea yet, but sometimes, I think sometimes, if everybody was honest about something, whether it was enjoyable or unenjoyable, even if it was just that, I think we would all be in a better place instead of projecting this image of, you know, “This is great!” We're enjoying it, but really, we're just laboring under something that now we have $3 million to do.
Karen: I actually think that's quite a radical question: are we enjoying our work? Are we enjoying our research? Because joy, fun, play, satisfaction: these are not things that we're filling out in our annual report.
Arti: Well, and some of these words are also words that we reserve for children, or childlike people or women. And I think fashion is kind of a weird one as well, because it sits within that very comfortably, right, like a feminine space. It's about consumption, narcissism, about vanity, again like feminine space, and it's kind of in that way, it's gendered. It's almost diminished, and again, it's the words one uses as well in terms of, like, is it serious? Is it good? Versus, is it enjoyable? Is it fun? And fun, that makes it almost frivolous. And then how do you make that seem like you're a professor, being frivolous.
And I feel that way, like, I mean, if you notice my little grid when we're teaching, a lot of my images are on campus, and when I'm in the design school, it's different. Students see me, and I think at some point they're all like, well, she's doing this because she's kind of bizarre, or whatever. I'm sure they have some internal reasoning or rationale for my wild behavior, but it gets weird where sometimes I am kind of a little embarrassed, because I'm behaving in a way that I would not assume a male professor to behave, or a chemistry professor to behave. So I'm kind of a little apologetic, but it's also fun.
Karen: This brings me to a question I've been thinking about recently, about visibility, and how you navigate that visibility. I was thinking about it in terms of Instagram, but of course, you're right, you are on campus. You are performing for the camera on campus. So that's a whole other…there's this localized visibility, as well as the kind of virtual visibility of Instagram. How are you kind of making your way through that?
Arti: And I'm also taking my own images. So I think when somebody takes your pictures, it legitimizes you being there. So like, say, if there was a male photographer taking photographs, or not even male, anybody, a photographer who looks kind of legitimately trained to do this. Even if it was an iPhone, because I think we've accepted that phones are a form of photographic tools. I think we've come to that in the visual arts, but like, if somebody else is taking the image and it looks like you're being directed, it stops being a vanity project, right? But I think…I'm reminded of, who is it in? What's that movie? You know, where that guy, it's the children's, I can't think of it, Mary Poppins, where the guy is like a one-man band. Sure, you can play great music, but you do look a little bit comical. So, you know, I have my little tripod and my phone, and I'm just smiling at this thing and taking pictures. So there's kind of this weird…it just seems comical! And I find it funny too. Like, I can see the humor in it, but I think to somebody viewing it, it could come across as being really quite stupid, right? So that part is kind of there. And, you know, being on campus—I mean, I feel quite comfortable now—but there are places where I feel a little bit awkward. I don't feel weird about being visible on the grid space. I mean, I think that's where it feels quite comfortable.
It's also interesting that a lot of students follow me and really enjoy it themselves. I also have colleagues who follow me who are quite interested in some of the visual harmonies. Some of my fine art colleagues have pointed out how they really like certain choices. So that part is there, and that's fun, but I don't think anybody sees it as work. And so it's kind of like…you're on your—I don't smoke, but I feel like it's equivalent to going on a smoke or break while you're at work, or, you know, like you're going out for a coffee or something. So you're taking a break from work to do this. And there are times when you kind of think, well, am I allowed to do that? I don't know. I don't know if that answered your question.
Karen: Yeah, yeah. I just love this tension that you're describing, this kind of ongoing tension. When I look at your images, I think there's so much complexity. And of course, I'm thinking like an art historian, right? I can't help but think like an art historian. But you know, there's so many layers to the pieces themselves, the poses that you're experimenting with, the settings and the locations and how everything is playing off of one another. And the more that I look at them, the more kind of deep visual resonances I see, and also references, right?
Arti: I appreciate you saying that, because some of those things are like complete parodies. And I think, like someone like you would know that sometimes I really think it's hilarious that I'm in a restroom, or the location is such where you have no business being. It's kind of like a parody of editorial images. But also, I'm sucked into that parody. Or, you can be in a place that is completely shambolic, but you can find one little wall that does something. So thank you for noticing that. To me, that part is sometimes more important than what I'm wearing. Like, that feels like easy, but without all that other stuff at the back, I don't think I could have that much fun. I don't think any of those things are really important to the Instagram app algorithm, but as a visual project, I find these pieces really interesting.
Karen: And to me, that is what makes this, as you say, work. It’s the whole intellectual history and all of the kinds of ideas that you're talking about in these images.
Arti: I appreciate you pointing that out, because I think maybe you're onto something there. So you're helping me. Thank you.
Karen: Well, I'm so interested in how you said earlier that it's okay for Cindy Sherman to do this, but you’re not sure about your own place.
Arti: Yeah. And I'm sure that was a challenge for her as well. I mean, I think about her, was it the Orange County, women of Orange County series where she overtly tanned herself? This was before digital photography and being recognized for these kind of parodies of beauty or image and that kind of stuff. And I'm sure it wasn't easy for her to enter that space, but I think there's almost this kind of—and it's interesting also being in this kind of, quote/unquote, content creator space, where content creators are seen as being creative, but not really…I don't want to say not intelligent. But there are times when people have communicated with me, want to offer me something to wear, or something, and you know that they're talking to you as if you're just somebody who just wears clothes, and that's what you do. And there's this assumption that there isn't very much thought or intelligence that goes into this…
Karen: …and maybe that's one of your interventions into that space, perhaps.
Arti: But there's enough content creators who are also, if you read images, if you read the text, if you read the words, if you have an awareness of what's going into it, you realize that these are very sophisticated things. But if you were to just gloss over them, it just seems like a lot of we see when we look at fashion images, right? Like that looks so easy, looks fun. There's nothing in there. It's just a dress or it's just a skirt with ruffles. But you know, if you understand the designer's process, maybe you understand it better. So I don't know.
Karen: I really appreciate you sharing the challenges of this work.
Arti: Well, I think part of it is also just trying to convince myself that I should do it. I mean, I don't know. Like, I keep thinking, really, I should just stop and focus on the real work. You know what I mean? And, and I don't think I'm wrong thinking that way sometimes. But I think I'm also familiar enough to know that it's tensions that make research interesting, right? Like, if you find something that presents itself in a very uncomplicated sense. sure, it all ties in really nicely. But then what are you getting out of it? What are you theorizing or making out of it? So I think the tension is interesting. But can I afford it? I don't know that's a good word, afford.
Karen: So are you thinking about that in terms of your broader career? Your role?
Arti: Yeah, I think I'm fortunate that I am in the design school, as opposed to maybe some of the other fields—maybe, or maybe unfortunate, I don't know, because maybe if I was, say, in English literature, I might have better language to talk about what I'm saying. Do you know what I mean? So I am trying to find ways to write about it. But I also know first person narratives are difficult in academic writing, autoethnographies are not always welcome. But I'm also interested in other content creators, so I'm kind of using myself as a way to enter spaces that I can write about, and my being an insider makes those interviews or conversations much easier and kind of richer. Because when somebody says…I can look past some of the sticker language, and say, can you give me more than just that? And I felt that way writing about fashion and design as well, because I've been trained as a designer, so I could kind of peel past the…when somebody gives you a standard PR sentence and you're like, it's more than that. So I am trying to turn it into some methodology work and some writing. And that, to me, is interesting, and I'm grateful that fashion is still an interdisciplinary enough space to welcome those things. But beyond that, I'm not quite sure, because I think that these two things that are happening, it's me trying to kind of academically write about something, versus, this other visual thing that is forming, and I haven't really found what to do with that, because I feel like they're separate artifacts, sometimes.
Karen: This process of doing something new, right? I think there's something related to being an associate professor. I've noticed with the folks that I work with that we tend to have this desire to do something new, to try something new, and we don't know how to do it. We're not sure if it's legitimate, to use the word that you've used a couple of times. And I think there's also, maybe we're not even really sure how we feel about it.
Arti: And we’ve been brought up in this environment where legitimacy is proven through either publishing and peer-reviewed publishing or funding, right? And so I think when you're doing something that has neither, it's kind of difficult. I mean, academics often say that they want to do work that is accessible and engaging, but there's no way to measure it, unless you can do some inaccessible work as well that is peer reviewed. So sure, journals have open spaces where you can do a visual essay, but that's not peer reviewed.
Karen: That makes me think about how are we recognized in academia. So how might we change these structural standards, how might we start to make some shifts in what we recognize and what we feel good about? Maybe that's not quite the right word, but I think there's also something around acknowledging it for ourselves.
Arti: I don't know if it's something one can change or fix, but I think that kind of being honest about those kind of things might be the most you can get out of it.
Karen: Yeah, I love that you've returned to that idea of honesty, because I think that's where we start, right? That's huge, that's a huge, radical act to be honest about what it is that we're doing, and the tensions, and the challenges, and the dead ends. I often think about how we don't talk about the dead ends in our research.
Arti: And also, the challenges of starting something new, I think that's quite difficult. You know, it's so easy to keep doing something that has given you some return, but when you start again, you feel like you go back to the bottom of the heap, and that's a difficult space to be. I don't think we talk enough about that. We try to. I mean, there's research organizations, groups, helps, and blah, blah, blah. But as somebody who didn't come from a traditional research genre into a university setting, it all seemed quite kind of like when somebody says you can do this, but nobody ever says how. And you're like, wait, can you be more specific? And then you realize nobody actually knows, but it's just a smoke screen.
Karen: Yes, yes. This idea that, first of all, we're somehow supposed to know already, and then figure out ourselves…
Arti: well, it's also like this thing about seriousness. I feel, I don't know. You often wonder, what is it that we miss out because we attach certain requirements for research and research outputs? Is there something that gets left out because we don't consider that kind of good or good enough?
I think there is something interesting or missing in academic work/life around pleasure and leisure. But I also am aware that when we try to touch those spaces, we tend to ruin them. And I think that's kind of part of it right? The minute you turn something enjoyable into a methodology paper that then goes to peer review, then something about it maybe gets lost. So I don't know. I mean, I'm just not sure where this project goes, or what it ends, or does it just stay, like a kind of a hobby craft thing on the side? And that's okay.
Karen: That's such a beautiful sentiment: how do we hold this? How do we hold multiple truths?
I have a very frivolous, perhaps question for you, but it's a question that I have been wondering. What does your closet look like?
Arti: Oh, it's really full. And it's always been full, because my closet has always been, it’s grown bigger in size as we've moved, and it's by no means a walk-in closet. I would love to have one of those. It's quite full and it needs to be trimmed. But I don't actually consume frivolously. I consume for long term. So that's kind of difficult. It's very colorful and it's very patterned, and I really enjoy everything's in that's in it, but it is quite full. I don't know if that answers your question.
Karen: You're describing what I imagined absolutely!
Arti: I mean, we live in an old house. It's a 1920s house. Gratefully, somebody added an extension and made a slightly larger closet, but by no means anything American standard, where you walk in and you have two aisles. Our neighbor is selling a house that has a closet like that, and I walked in when she was showing me their house, and I was like, oh, my goodness. But I also think the bigger more space you have, the more you fill it, which is probably not a good thing.
Karen: Do you think having that particular space helps with the creation of overlapping layers and textures?
Arti: A little bit. I think I have also changed how I dress, and some of it has to do with being on Instagram as well. I think it's made me dress a little bit differently. But I think it is also interesting when you accumulated over so many years, having certain things around you, you can pick up something and then just walk past what you have and of discover new permutations or combinations. I think it's also interesting because I've come to terms with the fact that we need novelty in our lives. I think it's impossible to wear the same thing day in, day out without wanting to change something about it. And so I think if one can find a way to find novelty or play with what one has without having to get more, it can be quite fulfilling. It's kind of like, you cook the same thing, but maybe you change something slightly. So I find that I have a lot of enjoyment saying, oh, okay, well, this goes with this so that that part is enjoyable, and the way it's set out, being able to see certain things together does help.
Karen: It puts me in mind of de Certeau, tactics versus strategies, the kind of everyday choices that we can make to subvert and radicalize within our own lives.
Arti: Yeah, and I think that it is an interesting thing to think about when we talk about sustainability, where there's talk about how much we should consume or not consume. Again directed towards women, always, right? But the need to have novel things doesn't go away. And so how do you do things that can sustain both, where you're maybe being sensible by about how much you consume, but you're also not killing that very basic human desire for novelty, because I usually it's one or the other, but I think you need both for it to work.
Karen: I'm really struck by that word “sensible” and how it feels against the word “novelty.”
Arti: Again, novelty is not really used in very good ways, always, right? It certainly has connotations related to gender…It does feel like a basic human need. If you look at early civilization, you see that the need to adorn is a given. So we have that whether people admit to the fact or not is different, but like most people have a desire to even do something, whether it's with their hair or a button or, I don't know, but then we do like things that are somewhat changed. And I think there is something quite kind of entertaining about that. Otherwise, you know, you could watch the same television show over and over again, right? And I think even though we think we can do something on repeat, there are other things that we don't. So, yeah, yeah,
Karen: it makes me think of my son, and being a parent is one of the main ways I have been confronted with novelty again and again, like my kid is constantly helping me understand the value of novelty, yeah, well, or
Arti: if you look around, look and see trends, or why things change, or even trends in furniture and you know, like, I mean, Mid Century Modern seems so perfect. Why would you change that? But I think collectively, people have to keep but that's problematic, right? Because it means more production and waste and those kind of things. So like, how can you kind of combine both without hurting one or the other? I think that's a huge challenge, because people try to design things that are sustainable, but then get trampled by the need for people to buy new stuff.
Karen: This really raises my last question for you, which is around good enough--it's kind of my thing! How do we be good enough? How do we think about good enough? You've elaborated all of these beautiful tensions, all of these challenges, all of these things that you're navigating. And I guess I'm curious about how you are experimenting with good enough, how you are finding or seeking good enough?
Arti: I don't know if I'm doing a very good job at that yet. But I think one of the things—it's a design or an art thing too, right—do we measure the outcome, or do we relish the process? And I think maybe focusing on that is a good way to stay good enough. Perhaps because sometimes the outcomes don't always quantify or fully represent the process, or the outcomes that one can demonstrate versus the ones that are there don't fully justify the process.
Karen: This idea that the product doesn't stand alone, I think, is really disciplinary for both of us, that process is so deeply integrated into what is left. What is left could never be enough in itself, but therefore, it's the being, it's the doing, it's that unfinishedness of the process.
Arti: Well, I think some fields are maybe more forgiving. I think our fields allow us to talk about process and kind of methods and those kind of things where some don't. So maybe there is that kind of maybe allowing more. There is something quite interesting in in reading about process and methodology, just by itself, so being more in that space, perhaps.
Karen: Thank you so much for this conversation.
Arti: This is so thank you for having me. This was fun.
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