This is the practical follow-up to these posts. The rubber is finally hitting the road!
I had initially told myself I wasn't going to bother blogging about modesty because it's the fall, and of course come winter most people are dressing modestly - it's too cold to do otherwise! But I decided this was actually the perfect time for me - I still haven’t switched out my tank tops and sundresses for sweaters and long underwear. This is an ideal time to take a long hard look at my wardrobe. As you know, I’ve been simultaneously looking forward to and dreading this moment. I’m excited about clearing old stuff out so I can go shopping for new things! But I shudder at the thought of pitching some clothes that I love.
I am going to get into specifics for myself here, but each woman's discernment process is her own. Here's a great post on figuring out what modesty means for you. Basically, she advises you consider three people’s opinions: God’s, your husband’s, and your own. So I did. I prayed beforehand (even though I felt a little silly doing it) and I pestered my husband throughout the process (“What about this? What about this? Is this too young? I know you like this, but don’t you think it’s a little immodest?”).
Also, while I’m wading through my wardrobe, I decided to take this opportunity to improve on its age-appropriateness. I have some things that are too young and some things that are actually too old. They're getting tossed, too.
What's in and what's out for me personally?
I refuse to believe that dressing modestly necessitates wearing shapeless jean jumpers. And I also refuse to believe that modesty entails wearing pantyhose in the summer. It's hot and you can't make me. So there!
Sorry. Apparently I needed to get that mini-tantrum out of the way.
Before I started, I felt like this whole thing was just too overwhelming. I heaved a great sigh and wished there was some established set of guidelines I could go by. Wouldn’t it be easier if there was just a list that said this is okay and this is not? Turns out, there is a conservative protocol out there, although very few people follow it.
Some might be familiar with the "Pope's Rules." In the 1940's, Pius XII was asked his opinion of what women teaching in Italian schools should wear to preserve their modesty. With the delicate reserve of any average man asked for his opinion on women's clothing, he simply indicated, "Below the knee, halfway down the arm, and two finger widths below the collarbone." I find these guidelines most reasonable.
Most reasonable? Yikes. I don’t know if I could handle that. Neither does this person, who responded to the previous article.
Things have gone farther than we realize. We are a million miles away from the "Pope's rules" for the Catholic high schools of the 1940 and 50s. Girls whose sense of modesty has been formed in a culture where "looking great" is understood to be synonymous with "looking hot" are not about to take seriously a decades-old dress code stipulating the number of inches below the knee, elbow and collarbone. It is simply too remote from their experience. It will only serve to confirm their impression that those who talk that way are completely out of touch with reality.
Yeah, I’m afraid I won’t be going for the two finger-widths rule. In fact, I added another hand to that length. Now whenever I try a top on, I put four fingers right under my neck, and add two from the other hand. Anything lower than seven fingers is too low. (Are you trying it? Does that sound too generous?)
See the thing is, I do not have a large chest, so I can easily wear spaghetti straps and even strapless shirts without showing any cleavage. How revealing is it to see a couple inches of flat chest? The 2-finger width rule is just a bit much for me to handle. I’m new to this modesty thing, okay?
(I might feel differently about this particular guideline a year from now. Eventually when I’m pregnant and breastfeeding I’ll have cleavage, right? And then I imagine I’ll be more at risk for immodesty and need to tighten up my criteria. Right now my goal is to keep my standards high after that, with the idea that by then I’ll have had more practice in modesty. Just trying to stay realistic here!)
While I’m talking guidelines, here are the other two I’ve established for myself: nothing too tight and nothing too short. How tight is too tight? Fumbling Toward Grace had a great rule of thumb:
Your dress should be tight enough to show you’re a woman, and loose enough to show you’re a lady.
And because I sometimes need even more guidance than that, my personal explicit too-tight rule is that any shirts that show my belly button indentation or any pants that stretch and pull too tight across the crotch are out.
My too-short rule is basically finger-length (although to be honest, I might go up to thumb length on a few things – we’ll see).
Okay, so here we go! Let's decontaminate my dressers!
Task 1: Tops
On Saturday afternoon I finally confronted the shirt side of my closet.
I was delighted to find that on my first sweep, I had far fewer out-right immodest tops than I thought! Turns out that moving every year for the past four years did help me to do some shedding. I still had a few remnants from college and even high school, but for the most part those skanky going out shirts I had have already been purged. Phew! I only had maybe six or so tops that I knew needed to be immediately rejected. This was almost easy!
And then I hit a snag. My husband the scientist walked by and exclaimed, “You’re not getting rid of that white shirt, are you? I like that one!”
“I love it,” I replied mournfully.
“You look great in it!” he continued. “And that blue one – you made it!”
“But the white one is immodest,” I pouted. “And the blue one is too young for me.”
My husband shook his head and continued on past. But the door to temptation had been opened. I had to at least try those shirts on, right? Just to check?
So I pulled them on, one after the other, and was relieved to find that my gut had been right all along. Strengthened in my resolve, I moved on to sweep #2. This time I pulled out all the borderline shirts – the ones that weren’t flat-out bad but questionable. Trying them on one by one, I was able to discard a ton of them – with the help of a second opinion. (This second opinion is fairly critical as it is, and I think the fact that his television viewing was being constantly interrupted helped sharpen that.) Many of them were quite modest, but I’m just too old for them. Even if it was my favorite everyday shirt in college, even if it’s completely modest, that does not mean it’s still appropriate.
“After all, 30 year old women can’t wear the same things they did in college,” my husband offered.
For the record, I only just turned 27.
By the end, I was left with a trash bag of tops and a pile of empty hangers. Success!
In the sake of full disclosure, I was also left with five tops that I just couldn’t part with yet. None of these tops are blatantly immodest. My husband liked me in all of them. But I’m hesitant to hang them back up. So for now they are lying on the floor awaiting my final decision.
Task 2: Bottoms
My legs are really big but it's all muscle, and I consider them one of my better assets, so I was bummed that I was going to have to give up the Daisy Duke shorts. And in order to limit my wardrobe to flattering clothes, I had to get rid of the really long shorts, too - Bermuda shorts make my bottom half look huge and unshapely. Then I started to freak out that I'd be left with just capris and jeans all summer, so there was no possible way I could get rid of all my shorts! My momentary panic was relieved by the thought that if I just wore more skirts in the summer, I'd be fine. And my husband the scientist likes it when I wear skirts, so bonus points to that idea.
I was ready. I dumped out my dresser drawers.
Goodbye to my daisy dukes.
(It’s probably for the best to get rid of any colored denim, especially coral!)
Goodbye to jeans that are really more like spandex than denim.
Goodbye to my short, skin-tight jean skirt.
Finally, goodbye to anything that shows my buttcrack (even though long shirts are the style now and I thought I could just pull those down and cover my hiney up). Here’s the (pre-jeans) pitch pile.
And okay, I’ll be honest again, I added a skirt and a pair of shorts to the “I don’t think they’re modest but I just can’t bring myself to part with them yet!” pile. My husband and I both love this skirt - it's a great length and great for my age. Unfortunately, it is ridiculously tight on my rear.
And I love love love these shorts, but I worry that they’re too short.
So for now the goal is to take some time to reconsider this clothes pile, pray about it, and go from there.
Phew, I’m exhausted and we’re only halfway done! But I think that’s a good stopping point. After I tackle my dresses and workout clothes, I’ll let you know how that goes. But in the meantime, I'd love to hear your opinions! Am I going overboard and overthinking everything? Am I being too lenient and not going far enough? How do you approach modesty and appropriateness with your own wardrobe? And what’s the deal with hating on spaghetti straps? (I kept mine because I mostly just wear them as undershirts, though I confess I'm tempted to wear some on their own in the dog days of summer.) I especially encourage those of you who’ve come to different conclusions to share your thoughts! No hating here :)