Fashion Supply Chains, the Fashion Police at UBS, and High Tech

One of my doctoral students and I recently revised and resubmitted our paper, " Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management Under Oligopolistic Competition and Brand Differentiation" for a special issue of a journal.

We became very interested in fashion supply chain management, since we had been working on time-sensitive products and fast fashion is an application of such supply chains. Our paper, "Fashion Supply Chain Management Through Cost and Time Minimization from a Network Perspective," will be the leading chapter in the volume, Fashion Supply Chain Management: Industry and Business Analysis, edited by T.-M. Choi, of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which is now in press with IGI Global and will be available in 2011.

Having spoken on Financial Networks recently at the Measuring Systemic Risk Conference in Chicago , where there were a lot of very well-dressed bankers, regulators, and financiers, in attendance, I was amazed to see that UBS, the Swiss banking giant (probably due to the torrents of publicity), is relaxing its 44 -page dress code, which included even the allowed color of women employees' undergarments! Now their employees may even be able to eat garlic and onions and to select the color of their nail polish. Remember, folks, this is 2011!

Speaking of women and fashion, my fellow blogger Laura McLay, brought to my attention a set of photos taken by Lawrence Harley "Larry" Luckham at Bell Labs in the 1960s, where he managed a data center. Note the number of women, their job titles, and their style of dress. I guarantee his set of photos will make you smile!

Why are there now so few women in high tech?!