071209                      Patricia McLaughlin/RealStyle

 modesty

Reawakens

Religious and ethical convictions and aesthetic judgments

converge on clothes that decline to let it all hang out.

Adding a pair of “Sleevies”—stretchy separate ¾-length cotton/Lycra knit sleeves, $10.50 for solid colors, $14 for tie-dye from www.koshercasual.com —to a girl’s short-sleeved T-shirt provides modest coverage while adding a pop of color. Illustration: Patricia McLaughlin

O ne evening several days before the 1963 high school prom at St. Mary’s High School, all attendees were required to bring their prom dresses to the convent for vetting by our principal, Mother Mary Cajetan. Everybody knew up front that no strapless dress would be approved—not, anyway, without added-on wide straps, improvised modesty panels and who knew what all, so why bother? Necklines judged too low would be raised with lace insertions. Spaghetti straps would be bulked up.

At the time, I have to say, it seemed excessive: What sort of God would consign a girl to eternal damnation because her prom dress shoulder straps were a quarter-inch too narrow?

I’ve told this story before as a quaint example of the repression teenage girls grew up with before everything changed in the late 1960s tsunami of hippies, be-ins, denim, protest, sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. So I’m as surprised as anybody to find that modesty—a word missing from the fashion vocabulary for the past half century—is once again a contender for the hearts, minds and wardrobes of American women.

All along, there’s been a countervailing undercurrent of parental resistance to fashions that invite 12-year-old Emmas and Emilies and Taylors and Madisons to dress like little Lolitas. (“Over my dead body will you leave the house dressed like that, young lady!”)

Now, when you Google “modest clothing,” you find earnest young women doing it for themselves.

No doubt the modesty underground has been there all along to some extent. Now that, like everything else, it’s online, it’s that much more visible. But I suspect it’s more than that—and there sure is plenty of it out there, in about a zillion variations.

There are, as you might expect, online retailers who specialize in modest clothes for Muslim women, Orthodox Jewish women, and women from Christian sects like the Amish and some Mennonites that wear “plain” clothes, as well as those, like the Mormon Church, that make a point of modest dress.

Some lean toward classic, full, flowy clothes; others aim to be trendy. www.FunkyFrum.com offers hoodies, long side-striped skirts made from sweatshirt fleece, a slinky dress in a Pucciesque print—as well as a “Runway Look Makeover” feature that tweaks and layers runway designs from Missoni, Chanel, etc., for women who don’t wear miniskirts or decolletage. 

Israel-based www.koshercasual.com advertises “modest camp clothing”—including tie-dyed “sleevies” for girls, separate stretchy ¾-length sleeves to be worn under short-sleeved T-shirts. They’re almost-but-not-quite exactly the same thing as the trendy armwarmers from a couple of years ago—and the site shows them mixed instead of matched: one pink, one green. Their knit mini-shrug—not much more than a pair of long black t-shirt sleeves joined across the back—also has interesting possibilities.

It’s striking how ecumenical this new online world of modest dress seems.  For instance, www.modestclothing.com, which serves Orthodox Jewish women who cover their hair and favor long sleeves and long skirts, posts a testimonial from “a Roman Catholic mother of three children who is trying to follow (largely-ignored) Church teachings regarding modesty and purity--but I don't want to look ‘frumpy’ or like I live on the prairie!” Another customer who is “learning more about my husband's Turkish heritage” complains about “the fashions nowadays which make statements like ‘I'm a child’ with clothes that seem too small or... reveal too much.”

Another kind of ecumenism: Sites that help women find modest dress patterns are also happy to direct costume designers and reenactors to sources of patterns for period clothing.

The layouts from Eliza, a fashion magazine “created for women who want to be stylish, sexy, and engaged in the world while retaining high standards…,” don’t look that different from those in Elle or Glamour. The models are gorgeous, the clothes are pretty, the photography is lush. The magazine, founded by former model Summer Bellessa, a member of the Mormon Church, promises in its mission statement to stand apart from “a media culture that frequently objectifies and commercializes women and their bodies” and “emphasizes sex and skin in order to push products or sell magazines.” It’s also committed to being “realistic about women's bodies: We don't retouch bodies, and we mix real women and professional models.”

There are blogs and websites like www.QuakerJane.com that track individual women’s experiences in embracing plain, modest or religiously observant dress.

Interestingly, many of the same styles that appeal to these women for religious or ethical reasons an also attract women who want to dress in a way that’s romantic, or retro, or just different. After last year’s raids on the polygamous breakaway Mormon sect at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas, a story in the Jewish weekly The Forward described a young woman with no connection to the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints sect who was nonetheless quite taken with “the dresses worn by the FLDS women and girls…” She was “obsessed” with “that long-sleeved, high-neck, sober ankle-grazing look.”

Maybe it’s not all that surprising. Skin has been way overexposed. As Oscar de La Renta told me once, hemlines can move in only two directions, and can only go so far in each one: Once they go up as far as they can, they have to come down.

And, after the long (and not always that attractive) reign of low-rise jeans and cropped t-shirts, who wants to look at another muffin top ever again? Modesty looks wonderful by comparison.  

And why not? For years now fashion magazines have been urging readers to ignore you-must-wear-this-now dictates. Instead, you’re supposed to dig down to find an authentic personal style that expresses your true self. Clothes that reflect a woman’s religious conviction or her particular—even peculiar—aesthetic do exactly that. And it’s not as if you’re going to look weird, not with half the world tromping around done up in Goth or Ironic Prep or art-school black with fringe or Pee-wee Herman suits or dizzying platform centurion sandals with five-inch heels.

Now that there are no rules, there’s no downside to looking the way you think you should.

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© 2009 Patricia McLaughlin

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