James Perse tee
6397 Shorty jeans | 100% cotton, no longer available
Women by Common Projects Achilles sneakers
“What happens when women start dressing in ways that are less than conventionally flattering?” haha…I know what happens, you get lots of head-shaking weird looks, and nasty blog comments. And sometimes you second-guess yourself. Been there, done that.
I’ve been challenging “conventionally flattering” for years (It might have all started with harem pants).
To the uninitiated or uninterested, it may seem like we (who don’t dress in traditionally “feminine” ways) are “activists,” and dressing this way on purpose – to make a statement against the idea that women must flaunt their bodies and dress them in ways that are “conventionally appealing.”
Maybe some of us are? More than likely it’s the 20 and 30-somethings still trying to “find” themselves who lean towards activism. I am not that deliberate. I simply like to play with silhouettes, and lately, there are a lot of interesting shapes and styles to play with: long and flowy with big pockets (ES Harper!!) over wide and short linen pants (Florence!), or jumpsuits that look like painter’s coveralls, with sneakers, high-waisted mom-jeans with crewneck sweaters tucked in…I wear all of that happily, and then the next day don a curve-hugging James Perse dress. Why not?
It’s natural to want to deconstruct this “movement,” which is what the NYT article “Modest Dressing, as a virtue” attempts to do. Again, I don’t think most of it is so deliberate, it’s’ just a pendulum swing away from flash, and logos, and skinny jeans (sorry!), towards comfort and utility. We want to wear clothes we can work and play in, walk in, stand in.
Modest though? I guess? But I don’t consider my way of dressing modest, per se. Not conventionally flattering, absolutely. I know how to dress in a “flattering” way – I did it most of my life: the object is to look as tall and as thin as possible. I certainly tried. But now, I couldn’t give AF.
But, of course, it’s not that simple. And I agree with the author’s point that
Modest fashion might come across as a humblebrag: You have to be a pretty stylish, pretty good-looking woman to claim ownership of such radical dowdiness
Not that I consider myself stylish, or good-looking. But I can see the point. Chloe Sevigny can wear anything and look amazing, even in costume for Big Love.
And,
It can also sometimes seem like an elitist project of sociocultural self-positioning: By embracing the covered-up look, you declare yourself part of a particular psychographic tribe, one whose members don’t just dress for other women, but for a particular subset of other women — those who get it, who are sophisticated enough to understand that opting out of conventional beauty standards makes for its own kind of conceptual, better-than-thou fashion
Again, I take issue with “radical” and “better-than-thou” because I myself, am not so deliberate, but I absolutely find myself tending to dress for that particular subset of other women, either online or off. The women who will recognize Elizabeth Suzann, or James Perse and who will appreciate it. And understand it.
I crave that sartorial connection, I’ll be honest. I love to watch people and see if I can recognize an “obscure” designer. And if I EVER see anyone wearing Rachel Comey, No6 clogs, or Elizabeth Suzann out in the wild, I happily stop them and take notice. (not that it ever happens…), and I secretly hope someone would do that for me as well. It’s a wonderful thing to find a kindred spirit. And why not enable that with our clothing?
It is messaging after all.
And what message am I trying to send? It’s hard to articulate, really, but I guess I want to look approachable and welcoming – not hard, open and creative – but grounded, strong and self-aware – but still (just a little) playful. I strive to dress in a “modern” way without being trendy, and I try to choose clothing that has a story.
Positioning is important too, though, as the author illustrated with Tavi’s story:
As the 21-year-old actress, writer and editor Tavi Gevinson told me, the relative modesty — or lack thereof — of her clothing choices reflects more than her own individual preferences. If she’s going on an audition, she won’t dress in what she called “a frumpy art teacher look” (a look, as she joked during our conversation, that could also be called “Brooklyn mom” or “European baby”). Rather, “I would dress in something that makes my figure look nice, because people are stupid, and most of the time when they say, ‘We want her to come in again,’ what they really mean is ‘Wear something more conventionally attractive.’?” In the publishing world, however, when Gevinson wants to be taken more seriously, as a thinker rather than a body, a dowdier look is helpful, so she can seem, she said, “as if I’ve somehow matured past a quote unquote juvenile desire to be perceived as a woman.” The formula, then, is flipped, but not in a way that’s necessarily more freeing.
We have to take into account our audiences. But I actually think this can be somehow MORE freeing rather than less. More powerful, at least. We can manipulate first impressions depending on how we choose to outfit ourselves for a particular event. Perhaps it’s not ideal that we HAVE to do that, but c’est la vie, at least let us have fun with it and enjoy the results.
It’s complicated, as everything is nowadays. But perhaps what we who dress “modestly” are trying to ultimately convey is that we just want to be. I don’t mean, we want to blend in, or disappear, I mean that we want to just be ourselves. As we are. Take us this way, or that, but accept us, as humans, looking for happiness and contentment, no matter how we look on the outside.
“We can manipulate first impression…” That is a very empowering way of looking at how you make your sartorial choices for a given situation. I love it.
Grechen, I loved this post! This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Like you, when I choose “unflattering” clothing it’s less a deliberate and self-conscious choice, and more about being attracted to certain silhouettes, or the movement of clothing, or a particular design aesthetic.
Love this post Gretchen! It’s why you’re one of my favorite “fashion bloggers” 🙂 Because this space is about more than just the clothes.
This article conveniently seems to leave out the general movement towards comfort. I grew up attending a school with fairly strict modest dress codes, so of course I rebelled against that as soon as I could. But even through my 20s I gravitated towards oversize silhouettes, especially in the winter, because they’re more comfortable. Now, many of the smaller designers I prefer to support tend to skew that way, but like you, I find that I tend to be all over the map, wearing a variety of styles from my closet that just speak to me on any given day. For example, my ES Maxine crop shows a ton of skin, but on the rare hot sticky day in SF, I fight the lack of AC by wearing as little clothing as possible, and then on more chilly days, I love to layer up in giant sweaters or cocoon coats. Maybe people need to stop searching for some deep hidden meaning in how we all dress *shrug*.
When I see women dressing outside what might be termed the normative feminine model with normative “figure flattery” goals, I think a) interesting! and b) that their decision to do so is conscious and deliberate and so c) I am curious about their other choices. If the “look” isn’t super fashion forward, I might also think that these are people who are off to get things done and are comfortable and ready for activity. I might presume they make other decisions based on a similar deliberations. These are all judgments and presumptions but fashion is messaging and so these are messages I pick up. Some non-normative choices are so fashion forward as to not have markers of comfort or being ready for activity because the extremes are not designed for comfort or activity. But you Grechen look like you are off to DO things (italicized if I could)!
Yes!! Totally agree. Sometimes we just want to be comfortable right?? I don’t discount others dressing “modestly” for religious or personal reasons or even to make a statement, but I’m also glad that it just seems more acceptable to dress in whatever way we want without having to explain ourselves …
Love what you’ve written here Grechen…and the other wonderful ladies also!!
I am at an age where I just don’t GAF either…I dress to please myself. My wardrobe makes me happy every day, and that says it all !! At this point, I think I could cover any and all occasions, except maybe visiting the Queen…and that’s not likely to happen LOL.
Here’s a tangential but related thing. At 61 I will wear a tight shirt and tight pants. As a young woman, when I was more conventionally attractive, I never would. Took away my power to control the impression I made, subsumed my identity into my femaleness. Now it actually adds to the impression, to the communication of my identity.
Thans you for this post.
I dressed very bold and less modestly for a long time. Like, my mom would call me before every family gathering to tell me, no cleavage, no short skirts, no heels. At the time, I was trying to put out an aggressive sexuality to pretend that I was in control. After some horrific sexual traumas, I had to tell myself that I was the one in control, and I could be sexual without a man demanding it of me. But it wasn’t authentic, and it wasn’t who I really was.
Over time, my style toned down to a more “colors and cardigans” look; an agressively bubbly persona to go with my faux-extrovert self-stylings. I looked happy, bright, and bubbly because I WAS happy, bright and bubbly GODDAMMIT. Eventually that style felt hollow, and the evolution continued.
Recently I’ve settled into neutral tones, streamlined silhouettes, and unexpected touches. and it finally FEELS like me. I feel at home in my clothes. Sure it’s more modest, but I have found more confidence in covering up. I enjoy keeping a lot to myself because it’s sacred, and it’s only for me to share, sparingly. My style evolution mirrors my personal evolution. As my style is honed, so is my honest about me.
Thanks for sharing this awesome post!
Thanks, Grechen, for your thoughts on that Times article and the broader topic.
It’s vaguely related to some of the research I did many, many years ago for my dissertation, which looked at some aspects of early 20th-century reform dress, specifically in Germany and Austria. That was another period where women very self-consciously rejected the dominant style of the day (a corseted, body conscious style) for something that read as ‘intellectual,’ ‘comfortable,’ ‘artsy,’ or ‘metropolitan elite’ and that favored the kind of sack dresses and the like that bear some resemblance to garments we see now from designers ranging from Elizabeth Suzann to Celine. Back then, it very specifically was a declaration in sartorial terms that you had a brain (not considered a given in 1906, say). It wasn’s necessarily radical, politically, but the fashion really was staking new claims for what women could do and be.
Many of the same arguments, pro and contra, were made then as now: it was ugly, women were doing it to show off their intellect (and in the circa 1910 variety, that was very, very much the case, it definitely was ‘holier than thou’), it was more “hygenic” (substitute sustainable or environmental friendly today.) There was a hilarious cartoon mocking women wearing billowy dresses, where a woman dressed in a flowy, caftan-like dress said she would be healthy and fit for pregnancy, with someone scoffing in the background, ‘dressed like that, you’ll never have to worry about being in that state.’ (There really has always been that subtext that women’s clothes are there to be appealing to men.)
It also touches on the kind of broader ideas of what separates how we dress individually (e.g., those who are dressing this way perhaps without other motivations, whether comfort, personal pleasure, etc.) versus the broader cultural shift. It’s the distinction between dressing and dress, in Roland Barthes’s terms (I did say up top this stemmed from dissertation research!) It’s when these phenomena move from individual choices to a more popular fashion or trend that they really start to have cultural significance (beyond being one person’s approach to putting on clothes), and it appears we’re reaching that moment now with this style. The Times article maybe could have gone deeper into why now, although some suggestions and allusions were made. Modest doesn’t strike me as the right word, either, and I think maybe too much emphasis was put on the religious roots as well. The New York, or high fashion, version seems rather less indebted to religious ideas. There are other sources, too.
Hi Grechen-
Love this post too! I too am on the I don’t give AF team. I grew up getting so much negative attention and cat calling on the street that I dressed like a ‘Tomboy’ most of the time. Im not curvacious or big busted either! I could write a book on how hair color affects the amount of cat calling you get in NYC . I have always been a rebel. For years people would ask me if I was gay. Now in my 50’s no one asks anymore lol! I’m also back to my natural hair color.
Thank you Grechen! xogena
I’m much happier since I’ve started dressing in what pleases me and not what others deem appropriate, flattering or acceptable. Sometimes the two collide, especially now that “grandma” fashion is in but while there may be some who don’t understand what I wear, there are others who get it and love it. If I did care? I’d rather have some be repelled while also enjoying the feedback of those who get it, really get it and love it.
I like comfort, natural fabrics, modesty and interesting shapes/proportions. It’s what I feel like me in. I have no doubt my style is influenced by my love of art, design and architecture. Not so much about my sex appeal. There is nothing political or activist about it except I feel more free when I’m not encumbered by a wrap dress and heels.
Thank you for the thoughtful post. It did occur to me that we are affected by what is happening around us, including the political arena. I may be more influenced than I think I am perhaps? Art is fascinating because it tells us about history and the times.
“…a dowdier look is helpful, so she can seem, she said, ‘as if I’ve somehow matured past a quote unquote juvenile desire to be perceived as a woman.'”
I’ll be pondering this…
I agree with you when you say most women could wear anything and look amazing. However, the term modesty is foreign to so many men and women of this world. While modesty does include clothing options, it’s also a lifestyle that many people adopt. I don’t believe it’s a “humble brag” to the world, but a standard of life that women choose to participate in due to various reasons, religious or otherwise.
Modest clothing is one aspect of modesty, and, if we had more women like you who could influence young women to realize it’s not just what’s on the outside that’s important, but what’s on the inside that counts.