Oh, wow.
Oh wow oh wowzee oh wow.
Get a load of this.
Holy cow, yabba dabba do! I mean, I don’t know what to think! She’s so very stylin’, so very sexy, it’s almost too much for me. Are we ready for clergy women in tight shirts like that? Sure, I’d love to see my collar-wearing colleagues have more options than the usual shapeless button-front blouse, but I’m sort of having a Puritan reaction to that Swedish pastor’s outfit.
Please help me think though this!! What do you think!!??
P.S. I’ve been to Sweden twice and have a special place in my heart for the Svenskas. Leave it to them to come up with this swanky look.
Well, Episcopalians, at least, are trying to attract younger people into the priesthood — is this the way? It’s a little much for me, too. And she’s wearing a tab/Roman collar, so who knows that denomination? Almy actually offers various options for women, including custom-made shirts and a tunic (which I plan to try, though polyester, even though pretty, is incompatible with Tennessee climate). I kind of feel that if you wear (relatively) shapeless black on top, there’s always the legs and waist to show. Not that I have much of a waist — but my legs are pretty good. And hair. I’m growing my hair again for the first time in 8 years. Get it back off the jaw line, and long hair can be pretty good looking.
As a soon Episcopal clergywoman, who is in her late 20’s, I actually love how form fitting the blouses are on the Swedish model. I tend to be fairly conservative and find the cassock a bit too tight, but the blouses actually have shape to them! Yippee!
I hate anything that comes up around my neck, unless it’s a
scarf, so the thought of putting on an ill fitting black shirt just won’t cut it for me–no matter how cute my pants or skirt are
underneath. I’m hopeful that I can have shirts custom made from
blouses I like, and that more companies will be listening to the voices of younger women who do like form fitting clothes.
I really don’t see anything wrong with it. I’ve preached in similar shirts.
P.S. I LOVE the cuffs!
As someone who wears a “dog collar” regularly I like their shirts. They are too tight for me to be comfortable in (but I have never liked tight clothes). However, I think they are appropriate if others were to wear them. I am surprised that one might think otherwise becasue they are not unlike a lot of fitted non-collared shirts that (skinny) women buy. An improved selection of collared shirts can only be a benefit, becasue many of the choices out there for women are AWFUL.
I love them! They’re beautiful. I wouldn’t call them “sexy” but tailored, modern, confident, and stylish.
I’m sick and tired of the shape of a woman’s body being something we have to hide and cover up. She isn’t showing skin I would wear them in a heartbeat.
-Tandaina
Good morning! As a 20-something Episcopal postulant, I love ’em! And ditto all of Tandaina’s thoughts.
How can we order them? Is it possible to get U.S. designers of clerical shirts to copy these?
Those are great. I don’t find them sexy either, at all, but just tailored and attractive. The models look very put-together and I’d have no problem approaching them for pastoral care. I’m young, too, so maybe I have different ideas about what clergy should look like, but I’d go to her church.
I really dig her glasses.
Actually, the only inappropriate item on that page is the WWJD t-shirt. It just screams, “Look at this message on my BREASTS!” Maybe it should say WWJL, Where Would Jesus Look? (In her eyes, heart and soul, of course.)
And besides, the Swedish translation is something like SVJ: “Skulle vad Jesus?”
Yes, I agree that the “WWJD” shirt is a little over the top, so to speak. Is it meant to ask the reader “would Jesus ogle her boobs as I am right now?”
I agree that the blouses look great and I’d wear one if I were built like a tall, lanky swede.
In my limited experience in Northern Europe, the tab collar is more common among clergy of all types who wear collars.
Back in the day, I would have loved these shirts. Were I to somehow lose 20 pounds, I might consider this stuff, but its’ a little too tight for me now.
They make sense for a smaller breasted body type. They aren’t any more form fitting than the tops of the dresses that the adult Laura Ingalls wore on Little House on the Prairie.
Clergy shirts I might actually wear, more than when I absolutely must?!? Why can’t women clergy look like women? I love them and may try to figure out if I can order one!
Quite frankly, I love the look. I especially like the lighter colored shirt with the 3/4’s sleeves. It looks comfortable yet professional. It celebrates the curves of a woman without making her look slutty. The problem is that they are made for slim women, is there a version that will fit a full figured gal like me.
I ADORE the WWJD shirt. For a clergy wife like me!!!!!!!!
I have to say I think these shirts are beautiful, and if I were slender or at least smaller (!) I would be on the phone to Stockholm to order a couple of these!
You all are CRACKING me up!! Laura Ingalls!! LOL!
So, get on the horn to Sweden already! Actually, I have a friend who lives in Stockholm. I’ll ask her to connect me to the site somehow. Of course I don’t speak a word of Swedish.
Well heck. Those would be a nice change. I might actually wear a collar sometimes.
Only in Sweden!
But I agree, let’s not make it “only in Sweden.” Great look.
The only issue I have with ’em is that only one very specific, and actually rare, body type could wear them and look good. But women shaped in other ways might look at them and think, “if I wear this, I might look like her!” and then we get into the festivals of inappropriate sharing and the wearing clothes that just don’t fit.
Women get all the good clothes.
Sorry, she looks to me like an ecclesiastical dominatrix…is she also wearing thigh high black boots with stiletto heels? The look is way too severe, and as someone else said, you need to weigh about six pounds and have zero body fat to carry this look off.
Then again, if she is shooting for the Emma Peel look a.k.a. “The Avengers,” then she got it!!
I too love them! Were I a collar wearer, I would totally have clothes like that. Most of my clothes are like that now (sans collar) and I wear them to church (well, okay, not that denim blue one, that was a little odd, and not the WWJD for all the aforementioned reasons!). Go with the women clergy appearing to be women not men! 🙂 I love it!
I think this look is fantastic. Can’t agree with the
ecclesiastical dominatrix impression … to me the looks says “hey, I’m I good Swedish Lutheran who actually believes she’s justified by grace and not by works, and that includes works like wearing dowdy clothes and dour expressions.”
she looks great — being tailored, stylish and confident is great–and it’s sexy. and that is alright with me. as for the concerns about size — there are many ways to look tailored, stylish and confident. your clothes have to fit you. don’t let the picture of a size 6 tell you that only size 6s can wear something. get clothes in your size. or find your own version. if you’re all lumpy then get to the gym (not so easy) or smooth yourself out with bodyshapers underneath (easy peasy). but don’t get all mad and envious and mean because you don’t have the genes, the lifestyle or whatever that makes someone tall and svelte while you are not.
Who doesn’t want a minister that looks fabulous. I’m tired of the frumpy polyester blend Sears & Roebuck missionary look!
Female and Stylish, where one’s body is not hidden does not always equal sexualized – just fantastic!
There certainly is a difference in what collars one uses in different denominations in different parts of the world. In Sweden these are not a bit strange for a lutheran priest (another difference is in the title one uses).
Maria Sjödin speaks english as do most swedes, so use the contact form on her website if you want to (contact = kontakt in swedish!).
About the weight thing -because it’s form fitted she makes it look good. If you can wear a t-shirt you can wear this. I’m not at all as thin as the model but I actually think I look more appropriate in her shirts than in unshaply manly tents that eradicates ones waist and well, makes me look slobby.
Count me in the “I might actually wear a collar, if I had one of these” votes. I agree with the tailored description, and think they look fabulous.
Maybe it’s that I’m a preacher’s kid and it just weirds me out too much, but most of those, as FABULOUS as they look, I can’t see as clergy appropriate.
And I don’t think it’s quite the form-fitting aspect as much as the way the lines fall. I really like the white one that vaguely resembles a turtleneck converted to a clergy shirt, and it’s just as snug; it just doesn’t scream “Look, I have BREASTS!” as much as the others do.
The first outfit in particular, I definitely get the dominatrix vibe others mentioned.
The second one is just unfortunate, particularly in comparison to the others, because that woman is gorgeous and thin as can be, and all you see is HIPS!
I’m all for letting female clergy look feminine, but I’m not sure I could get past the “Damn, she’s sexy!” reaction to properly appreciate a sermon, and I’m pretty sure I’m less hormonal than your average teenage male congregant. 😉
So I’m Presbyterian and don’t hafta wear a collar, but suppose I did. There was a Cokesbury catalog on my desk today and I looked at the clergy shirts. First off, they have no darts, nothing to bring them in at the waist to be even remotely comfy. I think they were actually men’s shirts, slightly smaller.
But secondly, they START in size 8! Back when 8’s were actually that size, I wore an 8, but with shifting sizes, it would now make me look like I was playing dress-up in my daddy’s clothes.
Men can wear lovely fitted suits without comment; why do we get so freaked out when a woman wants to wear a fitted shirt that actually looks good on her?! Sheeesh!
Hm. I posted a few days ago, & it hasn’t shown up. Must be some kind of blog fart or something.
Anyway, I wrote to my dear friend, the Lovely and Swedish Rev. Barbro Hansson of All Souls UU in Brattleboro, VT, to translate and react. Her opinion was “Interesting!!!” and that the style looked very Scandinavian to her. She translated the copy, though it’s at my other computer so I’m paraphrasing – “stylish collar shirts for today’s clergy” and gave the fabric types. If anyone is truly serious and desirous of them, I’m sure Barbro (or ‘Bro, as I am fond of calling her) would be happy to help you navigate the site.
P.S. She says the instructions are to give your e-mail to them to request information.
I just received an email from the designer with the measurements for the “EVA” blouse. I whipped out my tape measure (in cm’s) and I am 2 cms too big for her XL. Darn.
Last time I looked at her website, there was a drawing of one blouse which was paired with a long necklace with a cross swinging on the end of it. I was a teenager in the 1980s, and I gotta tell you, the Madonna songs started to play in my head. The designs that evoke “Like a Virgin”, I will pass on. But I think the blouse featured here is snappy and I’d wear it in a heartbeat…for the very first time….