On long hair and being irrevelant
Thirty years ago[now 40], scientists who studied climate change, and I am one of them, tended to have long hair and very colourful socks. We were regarded as harmless but irrelevant. But the serendipitous investment in their work revealed processes that we now recognise as threatening the future of human society, and the successors to those scientists are playing a crucial role in assessing how we need to adapt.
I think you could see the same dress sense in the golden ages of molecular biology and computing.
Another snippet from a wonderful article (and previous aside).