I'm going to my first conference in about a month, where I will be presenting a poster.
How do people usually dress for conferences? Do I need to dress more smartly than usual? Is formal dress (e.g. a suit) normal? Or does no-one really care?
I'm a PhD student, if that makes any difference, and both my university and the conference are in the UK. It's a biology conference.
It depends a lot on the event (some gatherings are more formal than others) and on your status (win a Nobel prize, and you can wear anything you damn well want), but in general, you're not really expected to wear anything fancier to an academic conference than you would for a normal day at work or in class.
In practice, most people do tend to dress up a little bit, just to look their best, but still, even if you just wear your normal clean everyday clothes, you're not going to embarrass yourself (any more than you usually do, at least). As the other answers note, "smart casual" is the usual style here.
Nothing says you can't wear a suit if you want to; I see people do that all the time in conferences. Then again, some of those people also wear a suit to work every day, so...
Still, if you're in doubt, why not ask your advisor (or someone else in your group who's been to similar events before)? That's part of their job: to teach you the basics of academic work, which certainly includes presenting your work at a conference.
In academia, the dress code is much more relaxed than in business settings, but there are exceptions in certain fields. But overall, people care less about what you wear, and more about what you have to say. (And I must, I quite like it.)
The dress code in most academic events (conferences included) is often called “academic casual”, and is not very strict. If you want to be sure to avoid any gaffe, just stay away from the short pants and T-shirts (overly casual), as well as full suits and ties (overdressed). So, long pants (may want to avoid blue jeans), a shirt (or other top with collar), possibly a decent sweater.
Regarding women's attire, in addition to the choices above, pantsuits are fine, dresses and skirts (not short enough as to be provocative!) are also okay, but again do not overdress.
Regarding various fields: I have noticed that researchers at physics conferences are usually more casual than chemists and chemical engineers. Others will surely comment about their own field(s)…
One exception I am aware of: law conferences usually follow a more business dress code, rather than casual.
It depends on who you are, who your audience is, and what you're presenting.
If your talk is very, very academic, then your best going with business casual. I have never seen a speaker wear a suit and tie.
Christian Renaud's dress at this Siggraph 2009 seems exemplary:
He's got:
If you're a woman, women's business casual is usually very similar.
This is Mimi Harris at Siggraph 2009, talking about Web3D.
Sometimes you will see people wearing T-Shirts at academic conferences. This seems to be ok for developers who spend all their time developing software, and are showcasing what they have recently developed.
This is Johannes Behr talking at Siggraph 2008. I kind of believe developers dress this way to kind of implicitly give the impression that "Hey, I was just developing and I popped in to give you this talk. After, I'm going straight back to my desk." A T-Shirt says "this is a casual talk. Relax. I'm showing you some cool stuff."
The important thing is to wear something you are comfortable with. If a suit/tie/dress really makes you uncomfortable or self conscious, don't wear it regardless of what other people are wearing. If you are comfortable wearing anything, I would error on the side of too formal. It tends to be easier to make an outfit less formal than more formal and while I have never heard comments about how someone dresses at a conference, I have heard negative comments about how a candidate dresses at a job interview (always that the dress was too informal). I find that a good starting point is to look at what people wear when they are teaching.
For women and men, I would err on the conservative side for conferences - but this does not mean you should throw out your own, personal style. My first conference, I felt awkward and uncomfortable because I had decided to wear pants and a blazer instead of one of my usual dresses. I though the pants made me look more professional - but they fit poorly and made me feel insecure.
Here are some tips from my department: http://ucfhistory.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/what-to-wear-to-your-first-conference-10-tips-for-grad-students/
In my experience the dress code at academic conferences is really casual. I would just wear what you would normally wear to work, possibly avoiding shorts when giving a presentation (although I have seen plenty of people presenting in shorts). You could also wear a suit, although I think you would be one of the few that does. If you do want to make your clothes a bit more formal for your presentation, I would wear only the jacket of the suit combined with nice shoes, with for example jeans and no tie.
Note: I'm female.
The conferences I've gone to weren't overly dressy. I've gone to a few chemistry conferences, a multi-disciplinary conference, and one for writing. I wore black slacks a nice top and I fit in pretty well.
However: I wanted to make a great impression and wore really nice shoes. They weren't crazy shoes, but there was a LOT of walking (and thus a lot of blisters.) Make sure your shoes are comfortable not just for standing in, but for walking.
Next time, I'll still dress nice, but I'll wear much more comfortable shoes.
I googled this topic because I was in a similar situation. Generally speaking, my solution to the problem is:
Find pictures of previous conferences and see what people are wearing.
Maybe it is an annual conference or summer school, or maybe you know a similar conference, chances are that someone was walking around with a camera, taking photos for posterity.
Apart from that, things hugely vary by field. In my field, for example, the old folks show up in dress pants or jeans and with a dress shirt, long or short sleeve. The younger ones have relaxed expectations. Sadly, we don't have Nobel prize winners who don't care about their appearance.
This is profoundly field dependent, and even within what could be considered the same field, may vary based on individuals and the slant of the conference. For example, in conferences I regularly attend:
I could credibly be giving the same talk at each of these. There's also differences by rank ('Big names' in my field are often dressed considerably down - at one point pink parachute pants) and other aspects like gender (women are, in my experience, more harshly judged for 'missing the mark' in either direction).
