Tag Archives ⇒ guests

Avoiding Plain Dress Designer Clothing

July 21, 2004
· Martin Kelley

A guest piece by “David,” orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on the Plain and Mod­est Dress Yahoo Group.

From: “mquadd” <mquadd@y…>
Date: Wed Jul 21, 2004
Sub­ject: Intro­duc­tion and questions

Hi. My name is David and I attend but am not a mem­ber of the Friends Meet­ing here. I was actu­al­ly raised as an Epis­co­palian although I had sev­er­al uncles who were birth-right Quak­ers. I grew up (for my first 10 years) in Chester Coun­ty, PA which tra­di­tion­al­ly was an area with a high con­cen­tra­tion of Quak­ers. I would expect that this is no longer true as the area has become quite sub­ur­ban with a big influx of new res­i­dents. Nonethe­less, I grew up attend­ing meet­ing now and then with rel­a­tives at var­i­ous meet­ings in Chester Coun­ty and north­ern Dele­ware. That was in the 1960s and was a time when some peo­ple, most­ly old­er peo­ple (peo­ple most like­ly born in the 1800s mean­ing these peo­ple were in their 70s or 80s in the 1960s), still used plain talk. Even in the 1960s, in a fair­ly rur­al area, this was more of an except­ing than the rule and was lim­it­ed to the old­est mem­bers of the meet­ing and nev­er used out­side the Quak­er com­mu­ni­ty. Those who used plain talk nev­er used it out­side of the Quak­er com­mu­ni­ty – home, Friends, and meet­ing. As far as I know, they nev­er used this type of talk for busi­ness or rela­tions or out­side the community.

At age 10 we moved to Lan­cast­er Coun­ty. At that time, many Mem­monites who now no longer dress plain or wear cov­er­ings did still did both of these. I went to school with many Men­non­ite kids. In addi­tion I became friends with sev­er­al Old Order Amish fam­i­lies (and one Beachy fam­i­ly) with whom I am still friends. That was 35 years ago, I have wit­nessed the plain tes­ti­mo­ny weak­en in each of these groups includ­ing the Old Order Amish. I actu­al­ly spent much of my child­hood and teenage years hang­ing out with one patic­u­lar Old Order Amish fam­i­ly as way to escape the insan­i­ty of hav­ing drug addict­ed and alco­holic par­ents. In their very sim­ple and unstat­ed Chris­tian­i­ty, they were very will­ing to pro­vide food, shel­ter, and love to a very con­fused boy (me).

Any­way, the Lan­cast­er Con­fer­ence Men­non­ites (now part of the largest Men­non­ite group) seem to be total­ly main­stream. Per­haps there are some who still fol­low the for­mer order. The Beachy Amish now dress like con­ser­v­a­tive Men­non­ites and less and less like Amish. Final­ly, I was watched the Amish allow lots of mod­ern changes in their dis­ci­pline although their basic cloth­ing is pret­ty much unchanged but sun glass­es are now allowed and many Amish girls and women pluck their eye­brows – both not allowed in the 1970s. By the way, in the late 1960s they had already adopt­ed cotton-poly blends for both cloth­ing and quilts!

The rea­son for that, per­haps odd, bio­graph­i­cal sketch is to give some back­ground on my expo­sure to plain groups and, more impor­tant­ly, plain thought. I have toyed with the idea of plain dress­ing although I can’t give a clear rea­son why I feel this. Is it a call­ing or am I just crazy? I do know that the sta­bil­i­ty I found in that Amish house in the 1970s most like­ly had a giant influ­ence on me (a hap­py Amish fam­i­ly where I had fun vs. liv­ing in a fam­i­ly that was in the self-distruct mode due to addic­tion). I also I have clear mem­o­ries of hav­ing Quak­er teach­ers in ele­ment­ly school and van­i­ty and world­li­ness was a bad thing. It was dur­ing the height of the Viet Nam war, so there was this odd hippy-Quaker thing going on with some of my teach­ers. I am sure some of you who were around the RSF in the 1960s can relate. So here I am still toy­ing with these ideas and still attempt­ing to define my own reli­gious feel­ings at the mid­dle of my life (I am 45).

Here are a few things I do know that apply to me. First, I feel very at odds with our soci­ety that focus­es on the most superf­i­cal things. Our soci­ety spends BILLIONS on make-up, hair dye, plas­tic surgery, breast inplants, push-up bras, design­er clothes (that are no dif­fer­ent that basic clothes except the label and might even be of low­er qual­i­ty).… Peo­ple are judged on the these issues. Char­ac­ter and moral­i­ty (a loaded term that seems to have been high­jacked by the rightwing and ultraconservatives)seems to be sec­ondary to these very super­fi­cial things. What we tell our­selves and our chil­dren is that we are not ade­quate as we are. We have to change our body and then drape it was over­ly priced clothes to count. The out­side is more impor­tant that the inside. This is sick. It is dis­truc­tive. It is a sin.

Beyond that, my feel­ings about plain dress­ing get less clear. Is a uni­form what I am seek­ing? Those groups who were very uni­form cloth­ing tend to be insu­lar and often attact as much atten­tion to them­selves as a bel­ly shirt and design­er jeans! If you doubt this, go to Lan­cast­er Coun­ty and attempt to dri­ve on Rt. 340. The attrac­tion that the plain peo­ple attract in that area rivals any movie star or rock con­cert. Lan­cast­er gets lit­er­al­ly mil­lions of tourists each year. So is that type of uni­form dress­ing that is quite dis­tinct serv­ing a good pur­pose? I am not sure but am just offer­ing a ques­tion rather than a judge­ment. Oth­er groups that dress quite plain such as ultra-orthodox Jews are not so much a tourist attrac­tion but clear­ly are insu­lar and seper­ate from the larg­er soci­ety. Many peo­ple view this as being “stand off-ish” which I hope is nobody’s goal. I have heard peo­ple apply this type of judge­ment to plain chris­t­ian groups also.

So, I would be very inter­est­ed in hear­ing what dri­ves oth­ers to dress plain? If you are a Quak­er, what has been the reac­tion at your meet­ing? I once met a plain dress­ing Quak­er who said that he had received more neg­a­tive than pos­i­tive reac­tions when vis­it­ing oth­er meet­ings. Are there any meet­ings where all or most mem­bers dress plain? In my child­hood expe­ri­ences, there was no plain dress­ing in any Quak­er meet­ings in Chester Coun­ty or in Dele­ware. I have not even run into any­one who uses plain lan­guage for over 30 years except that one plain dress­ing man. Clear­ly, I know no Quak­ers who have been raised with the idea of plain dress­ing or plain lan­guage includ­ing some of my cousins who are world­ly to say the least. What makes plain. I know of “black bumper Men­non­ites” who dri­ve a black bumper Mer­cedes. Is that plain? Why is a Vol­vo often con­sid­ered ok but a BMW is bad? They both cost $40K. Often I see this type of think­ing in those who claim to fol­low a less than world­ly life style. I think there is always a risk of falling into the mind­set of some labels being good and oth­ers being bad. Once a par­tic­u­lar brand, say a type of hat or type of jeans, is thought to be the prop­er “plain uni­form” does that not become the designed cloth­ing of the plain dressers? I am not sure. What I find is that once you jump into this top­ic, it becomes com­pli­cat­ed and that is not the point.

One final ques­tion, what ben­e­fits do you recieve from plain dressing?
Thanks. David

Plain Dress – Some Reflections

April 7, 2004
· Martin Kelley

A guest piece by Melynda Huskey

I’ve been much afflict­ed on the sub­ject of plain dress for the last sev­er­al months, thanks to Thomas Clark­son. Clark­son, a British Abo­li­tion­ist and close, even fond, observ­er of Friends, wrote a three-volume dis­qui­si­tion on Quak­er tes­ti­monies, cul­ture, and behav­ior (in 1811, if my mem­o­ry serves me). There’s a lot in Clark­son to think about, but his sec­tion on Quak­er garb was par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing to me. Not because I intend to take up a green apron any time soon (did you know that was a badge of Quak­er wom­an­hood for near­ly two cen­turies?), but because he pro­vides what a present-day anthro­pol­o­gist would describe as a func­tion­al­ist analy­sis of the mean­ing of plain dress: it served as a badge of mem­ber­ship, keep­ing its wear­ers pecu­liar and in vis­i­ble com­mu­nion with one anoth­er, while com­mu­ni­cat­ing a core val­ue of the tradition.

When I was a kid, I yearned for plain dress like the kids in Oba­di­ah’s fam­i­ly wore. I loved the idea of a Quak­er uni­form and could­n’t imag­ine why we did­n’t still have one. When­ev­er I asked my mom about it, she would patient­ly explain that an out­ward con­for­mi­ty in plain dress called atten­tion to itself as much as any world­ly out­fit did, and that Quak­ers should dress as plain­ly as was suit­able and pos­si­ble to their work in the world. It made sense, but I was still sorry.

And now, at near­ly 40, after 35 years of bal­anc­ing my con­vic­tions and my world, I’m still han­ker­ing after a tru­ly dis­tinc­tive and Quak­er­ly plain­ness. What isn’t any clear­er to me is what that might look like now.
After all, what are the options? Accord­ing to my part­ner, the dis­tinc­tive ele­ments of con­tem­po­rary Quak­er garb are high-water pants for Friends over 40 and grimy hands and feet for Friends under 40. This obvi­ous­ly jaun­diced view aside, there does­n’t seem to be much to dis­tin­guish Friends from, say, Methodists, Uni­tar­i­ans, or mem­bers of the local food co-op. A lit­tle den­im, a lit­tle kha­ki, some suede sport mocs, some san­dals and funky socks, batik and chunky jew­el­ry. It’s not obvi­ous­ly world­ly, but it’s not set apart, either. There is no tes­ti­mo­ny in our cur­rent dress.

On the oth­er hand, any­thing too vis­i­bly a cos­tume obvi­ous­ly isn’t right; I can’t appro­pri­ate the Men­non­ite dress-and-prayer-cap, for exam­ple. And my heart ris­es up against the whole range of “mod­est” cloth­ing present­ly avail­able – flo­ral prairie dress­es and pinafores, sailor dress­es, den­im jumpers, and head cov­er­ings – all with nurs­ing aper­tures and mater­ni­ty inserts, and mar­ket­ed by com­pa­nies with ter­ri­fy­ing names like “Dad­dy’s Lit­tle Princess,” “King’s Daugh­ters,” and “Lilies of the Field.” No Prairie Madon­na drag for me. No messy, time-consuming, attention-requiring long hair; no end­less sup­ply of tights and nylons and slips; no cold legs in the win­ter snow and ice. No squeez­ing myself into a gen­der ide­ol­o­gy which was for­eign to Friends from the very beginning.

It seems to me that con­tem­po­rary plain dress ought to be dis­tinc­tive with­out being the­atri­cal; it should be prac­ti­cal and self-effacing. It should be pro­duced under non-exploitive con­di­tions. It should be the same every day, with­out vari­a­tion intro­duced for the sake of vari­a­tion, and suit­able for every occa­sion It should be tidy and well-kept – Quak­ers were once known for the scrupu­lous neat­ness of their attire and their homes. And it should com­mu­ni­cate clear­ly that we are called and set apart.

But what gar­ments they might be that would accom­plish that, I can­not say. I’m stymied. Friends, share your light.

*Note from Mar­tin Kel­ley:* I’m start­ing to col­lect sto­ries from oth­er Friends and fellow-religious on issues like plain dress, the tes­ti­monies and faith renew­al. This is part of that project.