But although Romance Lang and Lit students seemed particularly impressed by their own sense of fashion, other departments are not about to let their "Best Dressed" reputation go unchallenged.
"History people are neat," says a Robinson Hall staffer wearing a blue blouse ("cotton," she notes), a white skirt ("linen") and Barbara Bush-esque pearls.
"Some are very well dressed [and] dapper," she says of Robinson Hall inhabitants. "There isn't that sort of 1960s sloppiness."
Student Jonathan Petropoulos--donning a preppy blue Oxford dress shirt, khakis, and black penny loafers--agreed.
"People here are not generally vain," he says. "Graduate students who have more professional status are more image conscious," he says of his peers who are lucky enough to hold teaching positions.
Petropoulos draws a careful distinction between American and European styles within his department. Like the Romance Lang and Lit department, he says, "you do have the Euro chic crowd here."
Despite the History Department's low-key attitude towards fashion, its faculty members have gained a reputation for being conscious of their appearances.
While Coordinator of Undergraduate Studies in History Dennis N. Skiotis does believe that "tweed jackets and khakis dominate," he does admit that "a fair number of the faculty wear suits."
And Petropoulos says that the only Robinson Hall occupants who frequently asked him how they looked were professors.
But many tee-shirted, tennis-shoed graduate students in the History department--and for that matter, many tee-shirted, tennis-shoed graduate students all over campus--did not seem to care at all about the GSAS fashion scene.
Three students wearing blue jeans in Robinson Hall said the only thing they knew about their department's clothing was that "it is required" and that it should be warm for those planning to hang out in the department library.
And two Cellular and Developmental Biology students at work in the Biological Labs, Winston J. Thomas and David M. Rose, promptly dismissed the matter of fashion.
"Casual," they said in unison, and then turned back to their work.