Beauty Tips for Ministers

Tiny Tippy-Poo For Jeans

Honey heads,

First of all, thank you so much for steering me toward e-bay, where I have just aquired my dream watch for $88 instead of $500!! How did I do that? Well, the seller was asking $188 (that includes s&h) and I had $100 saved up in my PayPal account already. Wow! I will think of BTFM and you all every time I put on my beautiful watch (btw, for those of you who are worried about the quality of Coach products, Movado makes their watches).

Now, for the teeny tip: if you care about keeping your nice, dark denim jeans looking nice and dark (much classier than washed out denim), wash them inside-out.

How To Hem Pants

Dear ones,

Reader Karen E submits this query:

I am an avid reader without even being a clergyperson! Imagine that. Here’s my question: If I have shoes of various heights - flats, loafers, shoes with heels (not spikey, but a bit high) what’s a good way to figure out how long or short to hem my suit pants? Don’t want high water pants with the lovely heels, but don’t want to drag all over the street when I’m wearing flats or loafers or other shoes suitable for walking that I also wear with those same pantsuits. What’s a good solution?

Dear Karen,

Thanks for writing!

This is an important question, as it highlights the problem of promiscuously interchanging all our wardrobe items when really, we would be better served by thinking of most of our clothing as being in the category of “work” OR “casual” — not both. If we did this, why, there’d be no more wearing of scrubby jeans and wrinkled tee-shirts to the office! And PeaceBang thinks that would be a good thing.

Every professional woman should have casual pants and work pants in her wardrobe, and hem the professional pants for a moderate heel. Very dressy pants should be hemmed for one’s highest heels, as they can be worn longer.

What that means for you, Karen, is to make sure those pants are hemmed to the right length for heels. Tell your tailor your dilemma, bring shoes of both heights, and see if you two can find a happy medium (long-enough for heels, but on the shorter side of “long-enough” so you can wear flats). You may not be able to wear your suit pants with your flattest flats. You will have to make some decisions.

One of the most awful sartorial mistakes PeaceBang sees ALL the time on male and female clergy colleagues is the Too-Short Trouser, which makes ones legs look shorter and which conveys, if anything, anti-elegance. Add to that some bunching around the derriere and horrid pleats in the front and we have an occasion of outright Trouser Tragedy!

Friends, your friendly neighborhood tailor can help you find the right height for your pants. Bring in your moderate heel and look for the back of the hem to hit an inch or so above the floor. My “dressy” jeans (dark denim, flared bottom) are hemmed to hit the floor in flats, because if I wear them on a professional outing, I wear them with 2-3″ wedges or heels. Too-short jeans always look atrocious. Please, ladies, please stop wearing your jeans to the top of your ankles. If you’re going for a capri look, that’s not it.

And now PeaceBang is off to a week-long colloquy on theodicy and is having a devil of a time figuring out what to pack. Important People will be there, but the conference is on the beach in Cape Cod and the conference center says to dress “casually.” What that means to PeaceBang is that she should do her best to walk the fine line between “I’m on vacation and don’t give a hang what I look like” and “I really respect these speakers and participants and want to spruce up for the occasion.”

I think this will translate as nice, crisp tee-shirts and cotton skirts, 2″ wedge flip-flops (I’ve given up: everyone wears them now), and nice cotton pants, more crisp tees and big funky necklaces. My nod to respect means no shorts, no capri pants (I’m too lumpy of body for them to ever look neat and polished enough), and none of my summer-favored Boho get-ups (gypsy skirts, babydoll dresses, huge hoop earrings, schmattas on the head, etc.).

Oy, the things we have to think about!

Yes, Virginia, There Is Such a Thing As Nice Jeans

Yes, Virginia, There Is Such a Thing As Nice Jeans
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

Having seen a frightening preponderance of Mom Jeans* on women of late, PeaceBang feels it worthy to return to the topic of JEANS on professional and snazzy human beings… even clergy human beings.

About a year ago, PeaceBang was at a collegial gathering wearing dark denim jeans, high-heeled boots, a fun striped blouse and a designer blazer with pockets and a belt. She had hair, nails and make-up done, and was wearing hoop earrings. In short, she was dressed entirely appropriately for a day meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association.

A seminarian approached her to say hello and said to her, “I LOVE it that you wear jeans.”

PeaceBang was a bit flummoxed. Such admiration for the apparently rebellious Wearing Of Jeans suggested that PeaceBang had tottered in from the fields clad in dirty dungarees, and wasn’t that a thumb on the nose to conventional professional standards?

PeaceBang didn’t know what to say, and ended the conversation fast. Could it really be that this seminarian was totally out of touch with the fact that, all over the fashion world, nice jeans and other well-made, well-cut denim garments were considered entirely appropriate for casual meetings in the business world? Had she never been to New York City or any other more fashionable urban center than Boston and seen thousands of professional men and women clad in nice denim garments pair with elegant blazers or shirts, and even dressed up for evening with heels and silk or cashmere?

Where the heck had she BEEN?

Every well-dressed American — including clergy — should have a nice pair of jeans in their closet. Those nice jeans should NOT BE faded, should not show ankle or most of shoe (in fact, they should be long enough to allow for the wearing of heels for women), should not make the derriere look like two large country biscuits stuffed in a basket, and should be kept folded or hung neatly, and even pressed when necessary.

Denim is IN, my darlings. It has been IN for years. Denim, when paired with other structured garments, is a perfectly acceptable fabric for all but formal occasions. The trick is to wear your nice jeans with a look that has some detail, some structure, some shape and some elegance. You wouldn’t want to wear nice jeans with an ordinary sweater and no accessories. That doesn’t cut it. Jeans are cool, and they require a bit of thought and effort to fulfill their potential.

Nice jeans, btw, are not appropriate for church on Sunday mornings. No way, no how. You can change into them for your meetings later in the day, but they do not belong in the Lord’s temple on the Sabbath.

* How do you know Mom Jeans when you see them?

1. They are a faded, light denim, or splotchily faded from many washings.

2. They sit high on the waist, creating a pear-shaped body.

3. They are too short. You can see two or three inches of ankle.

4. They make the derriere look like enormous marshmallows because they have no stiffness left and they don’t fit.

(Sweetheart People, one of the reasons denim has such perrennial appeal is that it MOLDS AND HOLDS JIGGLY BODY PARTS. When you gad about in floppy denim that doesn’t hold anything in, you’re defeating the purpose!)

5. The jeans in the photo are by True Religion. They cost $240 and they are most definitely NOT Mom Jeans. They’re beautiful, in fact, but the front patch pockets render them a bit too casual for your line of business.

PeaceBang’s Friendly Nemesis (Part I In a Series)

This is wonderful.

This is just what I had hoped for.

I have just received a thoughtful, very considerate letter from a minister who believes exactly the opposite that I do, and who is working at absolute cross-purposes with me. This gives us an opportunity to delve back into some of the deeper issues around ministerial power, and for that I am immensely grateful to the author of this missive. He can wear jeans to my church any time.

He wrote me off-line with these words,

I have to admit that I read your blog with much dismay. You see, you and I are fighting on different sides of the same war. While you advocate for a more finely honed fashion sense among the clergy, I advocate for quite the opposite.

In my 4 years of ministry so far, I have made it my mission to dress as casually as possible at all times. This means jeans and chaco sandals in the summers (haven’t been able to get away with shorts, yet), and jeans and my beloved Birkenstock clogs in the winter. On Sundays, and for hospital visits, I break out the khakis and dressy shoes. When I preach I wear a tie (but no coat). I fully intend to someday preach a sermon barefoot, just to make a point.

I have spent 4 years being accosted by a small army of old church ladies who have asked me whether I own a suit and tie, whether I would like Santa to bring me one, and whether they might take up a collection to buy me some clothes. My reply is always the same: I have a closet full of ties. I have suits and coats. I have nicer, dressy shoes. The problem is not that of poverty or apathy.
My dear PeaceBang, I am on a crusade which is at cross purposes with yours: I seek the dressing-down of the clergy.

This attitude is rooted in a deep Protestant priesthood-of-all-believers ethic, a deep Stone-Campbell movement distrust of clerical privilege, and a deep liberation theology affection for the poor and oppressed. Simply put, I think that clothes are our culture’s primary marker of wealth and status, and the tradition of dressing up for church is the most insidious development since Judas went to the authorities.

When we dress nicely, we alienate everybody who is not in our club. Just yesterday, I encountered 4 men who came to our church from off the street. One is an unemployed bipolar man who comes for counseling from time to time. The other three were itinerant laborers who were grimy, dressed in work clothes, smelled bad, and needed a meal. I, in my jeans and nice shirt, was obviously more wealthy than any of them. But in my jeans and shirt, I was approachable. In a suit and tie (standard ministerial issue), would the doors of our church or my office have been as open?

I don’t mean to make this so melodramatic. But it is something I feel quite strongly about. I can also tell that you feel as strongly about your position, so my aim is not to convince so much as to exchange ideas. So there you have it. You have met your opposite.”

And he closes with very nice words of appreciation for this blog.

Before I lay my entire response on you, let me point out a few things:
He wears a tie to preach in. Bravo.
He hasn’t reverted to shorts yet. Thank the gods.
He has a closet full of ties and he owns a few suits and good shoes. Good. I hope he’ll decide to wear them more often.
And finally, he has given a lot of thought to his sartorial choices and has put a solid theological foundation beneath them. That’s much more than I can say for some of our sloppy colleagues, whose justification for looking like a mess goes something like this:
“But I’m not comfortable in a button-down shirt and closed-toe shoes!”

Stay tuned for my full response to our jeans-clad friend.

My Response To My Friendly Nemesis (Part II In A Series)

Here is my full response to the reader who wrote to tell me that he is absolutely opposed to my efforts to de-frumpify and dress up my colleagues in ministry. I am so grateful to him for encouraging me to get down on paper the ideas contained within :

“Dear XXX,

This is a great exchange.

I am, of course, dismayed by your own efforts just as you are at mine.

We do have some middle ground, of course! Just not much!

Here’s what I would say to you, my friendly nemesis:
I find it disingenuous and inauthentic to intentionally dress down just to “get with the peeps.” I don’t see Martin Luther King leading his people in a Hawaiian shirt and sandals.
And I think it a most unfortunate choice to intentionally dress more shabbily to show solidarity with the poor, when in my opinion, it is both more authentic and more respectful to bust into a situation dressed to the nines on behalf of a woman or man who is tattered and unclean. It’s my way of saying, “I’ve got a modicum of power here, and I’m going to use it on your behalf.” I think that subverts the world order way more than if I showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, intentionally divesting myself of visible membership in the middle class just for the sake of visual solidarity with people I’m really NOT LIKE.

I don’t like dishonesty and pretentiousness. I am not poor. I am, by virtue of my hard-working , dirt-poor, immigrant grandparents and great-grandparents, a highly educated, privileged woman who has some access to power. I deeply believe that to try to distance myself from that truth does dishonor to my immediate ancestors’ suffering and sacrifices. Perhaps you have no such immediate experience with actual poverty in your family line. I think that if you did, you would worry less about wearing a suit and tie to the office (heavens, do minsiters really do that? Even PeaceBang doesn’t think that’s necessary!) and more about living fully into the power of your office. If we use our power the way Jesus bade us, we have no reason to be ashamed of it, to shy from it, or to masquerade as a powerless person.

I don’t want to get to Heaven and have my Sophie and Max and A.J. and Minette and Charlie and Anna say to me, “We worked our fingers to the bone in this country so that you could become a somebody! We pushed a fruit cart, we lived in tenements, we worked in the coal mines. We went without so that you could go to school and get degrees and fight for our values and for the freedoms we believed in. We suffered and counted pennies so that you could worship God in freedom — even to become a Christian! For this you schlepped around in dungarees and pretended you were poor? Oy gevalt!”

I’m glad to hear that you wear a tie on occasion, because I deeply believe that it actually hurts the little old ladies in your church when you dress like a slob. It insults them. That’s what they’re telling you by offering to buy you clothes. For that generation, your sandals and shorts are a sign of disrespect and hostility. I hope you can understand that. For them, you may as well get up in the pulpit and fart as attend important functions in jeans. It’s a girl thing.
Would it kill you to put on a suit and tie for them now and then? They’re paying your bills, aren’t they? Don’t they need to be reflected in your eyes as much as the poor man does? Aren’t they poor and suffering in their own way? Of course they are. And yet you’re intentionally distancing yourself from them, because it’s more spiritually glamorous to focus on the itinerant laborers who come in “from time to time.” What, your girls who are there ALL the time don’t rate? See what I’m saying?

But this is the hardest thing I have yet to say, my friend:

In my opinion, the only clergy or religious leaders I can respect who dress like the poor ARE the poor. If you are willing to go to your governing board and request to be supported at poverty subsistence level because of your deep distrust of clergy privilege and your unwillingness to publicly identify as a person of means, then you’ve totally earned the right to walk around in jeans and a t-shirt.
But to collect a reasonable salary and to dress like the poor strikes me as … well, let me just quote my ancestors on that one: OY gevalt.

Much love and thanks so much for writing,
PeaceBang”

Stay tuned, readers!! He writes back with more interesting clarifications and good arguments, and then I write back AGAIN!
Is this not HOT?

PeaceBang and Rev. Blue Jeans Continue (Part III)

[The conversation continues thusly… I formatted slightly for your ease in reading. Rev. BlueJeans speaks:)

As I was hoping! A Great Coversation!
And yes, of course you can post, sans identifying information.
I think you misunderstand the thrust of my argument. Or perhaps I don’t understand the thrust of yours.

I guess the question is this: what is the baseline of human attire? You point to my dressing-down as hypocrisy. This would indeed be true, if it represents a “disingenuous and inauthentic” departure from what I would otherwise be wearing–a “masquerade,” as you say.

If I would naturally be inclined to dress in suits and ties, but instead wear jeans and sandals, all in an effort to “get with the peeps,” then yes, that would definitely qualify as hypocrisy. But that’s not what’s happening. I would submit that no human, being in a state of nature (a la Locke or Hobbes), would of his or her own free will choose to wear a suit and tie, or a skirt for that matter. And don’t even get me started on high heels. These items of clothing, far from being the thing most of us would choose to wear, are dreaded, uncomfortable, and expensive encumbrances. At best, we wear them because we’re expected to wear them, and because we assume they’ll gain us the approval of others.
So when I wear jeans or shorts, it’s hardly as if I’m stooping my otherwise lofty perch to “get with the peeps.” I’m being as I would like to be in the world–comfortable, and not broke from dropping $400 on a suit.

I ask you this: would it not be less disingenuous (more ingenuous? more genuine? how does that work?) for me to wriggle into a suit and tie on Sundays, simply to satisfy the expectations of the upper-middle-class folks that pay my bills? I can wear what I’d otherwise wear, or I can move into an entirely foreign class of clothing (ties: nooses for men!) based solely on the proposition that it will set others at ease. How is that not disingenuous!?

I don’t propose that we all dress as coal miners or auto mechanics, in an attempt to imitate the dress of the working poor. I simply propose that we don’t all wear, minimally, $100 worth of clothing to church. Why should people who have a desire to come to church be forced to climb over an obstacle like that? Why couldn’t they wear whatever they want? What could clothing POSSIBLY have to do with God, church, and community?

Clothing functions as a social marker…it sets us apart from each other, illuminates differences in class and status, and reminds people of their sitz im leben. I don’t see it as all necessary in the practice of religion. In fact, I see it as fairly inimical to the practice of Christianity.If I could wave a magic wand, I’d institute mandatory casual dress at every church in the country. Luckily for the church ladies, I can’t.

It’s interesting that you bring up family history as it informs our fashion concepts. I do in fact have a great deal of familiarity with poverty; I am the child of Appalachian farmers many generations back, and my mother didn’t have indoor plumbing until she went to college. As a kid, we didn’t have two nickels to rub together, so perhaps my ethics of clothing has been influenced as much experience as by the Marxist-liberation critique I encase it in.

I await the next volley….”