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Fabulous Shoes Worn Two Different Ways

Rev. Gidget is doing an interim ministry in an urban setting. She wrote to me several months ago and commented on the sense of style and fabulousness of the African American women she was seeing in her community. She attributes her new sense of fun and adventure in accessories to these inspiratrixes. I’ve known Gidge for a long time and I have to laugh and clap with glee when I see how far she has come in her sense of personal style. Like, these fantastic shoes!

Here’s how she wore them for a day at the office. I think this is a super sharp look. I love the interesting pendant (it looks vaguely religious and makes me want to ask the story behind it — hence, great conversation-starter!). The scarf looks really good — like something she put on because she liked it; not contrived and uncomfortable the way scarves can so often look. The proportions of the outfit are excellent for her, and she’s petite so that’s not always an easy thing to achieve. Hair, make-up, glasses, all communicate contemporary spirit and creativity that never veers anywhere near wacky. She looks like a mature leader who knows who she is and has a strong personal aesthetic:

Now here’s Gidget at a community event where she needed to dress it up a bit. She’s added pearls, earrings that she says she loves, and a striking red shirt and black shift (that she advises are more tailored in person than appears to be in the photo). And, of course, the fun shoes:

Very pretty, very appropriate but this ages her a bit in a way that the previous outfit does not. The big overshirt paired with the long pearls seem a bit old for her — not frumpy but not as chic and creative as her day at the office look. Because Gidget is petite I would ideally like to see her in a more structured top layer. Or if she’s going to wear an unstructured over-piece, I would have belted the tunic to give it some shape, and/or doubled the pearls to pull some energy and focus up toward her face. The heaviness of the pearls pulling the eye downward paired with the unstructured line of the shirt doing the same thing gives me the sense that her clothes are swallowing her just a little bit.

Up close, very pretty! Great color on ya, Gidge.

Thanks, Gidget. Looking good in the neighborhood.

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Seminarian Internship Interview

Aw, Looky Here, Ma! We done heard from a seminarian! Hello, seminemineminarian!

Having long since digested the ministerial intern rant and shared it with numerous other seminarians, I’ve come to a different issue of style for which I would appreciate some advice. As you know too well our [ liberal religious community] is a strange mix of men who wear suits to church every Sunday and those who show up in shorts and flip flops. I am seeking out an internship for the coming year and have been invited to interview later this month with one of our larger congregations. The interview will be conducted in person, starting with a potluck one evening, moving into a more formal interview the following day, and attendance at worship on Sunday. I know well enough to go to an interview in a suit, but what to do when the interview is over a multi-day, multi-context situation? A suit seems too much for a potluck, but as a younger 30-something I also want to convey that I understand the role I’m “auditioning” for, and that ministry calls for different dress for different occasions. And one last question- I’ve been considering growing my hair out after having kept it short for the last few years. It’s curly at length, and is, at the moment, not long enough to pull back, but starting to show the beginning of the curls. Can I be a male minister in our association and have long hair while looking professional, and if so, what’s the protocol for the in-between stage?

DEAR Newbie,
So good to hear from you.

Let’s take your questions in opposite order of where they appear in your letter. First, hair.

Curly hair on men is so often a mess when it’s longer. It’s very difficult to cut well, and often appears just furry and lop-sided and even icky at in-between stages of growth. This isn’t to say that you need to chop the hell out of it (stop looking at me like that, Samson). It just means that you need to find a good stylist, not just your typical $5 barber, and get it cut well. Sit in the chair with the stylist and discuss how you want it to look before he or she gets out the shears. Curly hair is tricky but worth the effort. I would not advise you to grow it out. It’s almost certain not to look as good as it can look at a shorter length.

There is a certain religion professor associated with liberal religion at one of our more liberal seminaries who has long curly hair, and I frankly think he should CUT IT OFF. So if he, or his students, are reading this, PEACEBANG TOTALLY THINKS YOU SHOULD CUT YOUR HAIR. “Hippie chic” is an oxymoron. It looks dated and unkempt.

Second question, Newbie. That’s complicated since I don’t know what you look like. However, I think you’re going to have to pack a few options for this trip. I don’t think you need a complete suit for the actual internship interview. I worry, quite frankly, that you’ll look like a used car salesman. Go with a sports jacket and tie. We’re not in the corporate world and you want to be confident and somewhat comfortable. Think of the setting. You’re likely to be interviewing in a church parlor with a bunch of fairly casual lay people and a coffee pot on the table and paper cups all over the place (wait, they’re the liberal church — scratch the paper cups, they’ll be SUSTAINABLE cups). You’re not in a board room, you’re not in a formal setting with thick carpets and oil paintings. Tie and jacket. Make sure everything is impeccable, that it all fits and is ironed, etc. Shine your shoes. Trim your nails. Shave.

Speaking of shaving, PeaceBang HIGHLY DISAPPROVES of scant beards on preachers. If you can’t grow a full face of beard or goatee, CLEAN SHAVE THE FACE, for God’s sake. The patchy beard looks like a dirty face from a distance. ICK.

For the more casual potlucky portion of your time with the committee, guess what? I would still wear a sports jacket. That’s just me. Because I happen to think that a comfortable sports jacket is a nice way for a man to look relaxed and put together at the same time, and I am sorry that your generation mistakenly believes that jackets are just for dress-up time. They really aren’t. I would wear nice dark jeans, a tweedy sports jacket, a button-down shirt open one button at the neck (T-shirt, please, no chest hairs showing), and a pair of sexy shoes like these,

You don’t want to wear sporty shoes at any point in the interview process. Shoes are where so many people go so wrong. So stay away from this sort of thing,

Because honestly, Newbie, even if you just wear a sweater, tie and chinos to an interview (another look I might recommend for the potluck), it’s all about sealing the deal with the right shoes. The shoes bring it up a notch. If they’re sharp and shined up and a snappy, you really elevate your outfit. DETAILS, darling! DETAILS! Grooming! Accessories! A nice watch, a fresh shave and haircut.

What you don’t want to do is pair a suit jacket with a pair of jeans, like super hunk Daniel Craig has done here. He’s James Bond, so he can do whatever he wants, but the formality and cut of a suit coat have no place with a regular Joe pair of pants. It’s very Euro but so wrong for American Church, and the fabrics are entirely incompatible:

But blazingly hot, no? Rrrrowl.

A sports jacket is meant for less formal occasions. Note:

Lookin’ good in the neighborhood.

Save your suit for Sunday morning, when you should look sharp as a TACK, baby. Pack it carefully in a garment bag and carry it on the plane. Yes, you need a suit for Sunday morning. Borrow one if you have to but for the love of God make sure it FITS YOU. No hems pooling around your ankles. No sock showing when you walk. No straining seams, or jackets you can’t button or yards of extra fabric or huge pouches of material around your thighs. Make sure about an inch of shirt cuff can be seen beyond the cuff of your coat. Bring a hair removal roller.

Remember to all of you: structured garments communicate respect. Whenever you interview, you should be planning your outfit around structured garments unless you’re intentionally working the Flowing Garb Warm Pastoral Therapist look, in which case you should be all warmth and cuddly fabrics and unstructured clothes. Like maybe a PONCHO.

Wouldn’t Poncho be the cutest name for a cat? “Poncho! C’mere, Poncho!!”

Anyway, Newbie, so glad to hear from you. Best of luck with the interview and do drop a line to tell us how it went. Kiss of peace, PB

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“Take Back Yer Mink, Take Back Yer Poils, What Made You Think That I Was One Of Those Goils?”*

Kim has this to recommend for you little peanut faces,

I’m a short, young-looking woman working towards being a minister, and I can’t plug enough the classifying power of jewelry that says “I am an adult.” A string of pearls is a tool I have often used to bring a touch of unmistakeable adulthood.

Another, slightly more drastic tool is the short haircut. My round cherubic face looked much much younger behind a shoulder-length style- getting a pixie cut exposed cheekbones and a jawline that make me look my REAL age.

Well-played, Kimba. How about some photos?


You know this woman is probably like, 22. Don’t get all dowagery on us, pigeons.


Multiple strands are very in right now, although one wouldn’t want to do the fresh-out-of-bed-tumbled-tigress hair and huge eyeliner with them.


I love this era. 1912. Single strand of pearls with a square neckline, big hair with fab hair wrap. J’adore.

*Yet another musical theatre reference, sweetlings, this one from the legendary pen of Frank Loesser from his smash hit, “Guys and Dolls.”

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Unstructured Garments

HEED Mother PeaceBang, children: unstructured garments can be a Slip-N’-Slide straight to Frump Hell.

Here’s how it goes: lady minister d’un certain age has an event to go to. She wants to look special, and so she finds a garment that seems pretty and a bit dazzly that won’t require her to be all buttoned up and uncomfortable. She winds up wearing a pair of black pants with a fancy poncho or other unstructured garment; maybe a jacket, but an unstructured one. And then she thinks she’s done. She goes to that event in her sparkly ethnic muu-muu or her brightly colored Indian jacket and her black pants with comfy shoes, and maybe a pair of little gold earrings.
She hasn’t done a thing with her hair or make-up. And she looks like straight-up hell.

PeaceBang sees her and wants to DRAG THAT POOR WOMAN INTO THE LADIES ROOM and attack her with a slew of cosmetics. That woman has made the typical sartorial error of thinking that getting dressed is a matter of her comfort rather than a matter of making of herself a work of art and a living image.

Look here, girls and boys. PeaceBang doesn’t want to have to keep belaboring this point: clothes are just the beginning, just the bread. Grooming and carriage and attention to detail are the actual sandwich filling. I don’t care how nice your sports jacket and silk tie are. If you have huge blackheads on your nose, enlarged pores on greasy skin, a scattering of dandruff on your shoulders and gross fingernails, you may as well have come to the event in a potato sack. If you have flat boy hair and sallow skin and bags under your eyes it doesn’t matter how sparkly your Indian jacket is. In fact, the jacket just competes with your face and makes it look more terribly drab by comparison.

How do people still not know this!?

Do you ever, ever, EVER see an Indian woman at a social gathering in a kurti without her make-up and hair all done up? Of course you don’t. The personal adornment is as much part of the outfit as is underwear: one doesn’t throw on a kurti and walk out the door with no face or hair on. Only sloppy American women think it’s acceptable to do that. Ugh. What an insult to the craftsmanship of the garment! (click on images to enlarge)

exoticindiaart.com

A garment likes this next one needs someone with presence and glamour to wear it or else it will most certainly wear the woman. You don’t go out the door in this with flat, drab hair and no make-up and accessorizing! Get real! You need eyeliner, you need blush, you need lippy. And you need an attitude, darling. Leave it on the rack if you can’t live up to it:

Even this casual little ethnic vest from marketplaceindia.com needs to be styled and lived up to. Notice the model’s cute hair, make-up and accessories. She looks beautiful. Most clergywomen I see in this sort of cotton ethnic garment look dull as dishwater. Show up for this jacket! Just because it is unstructured does not mean that you should be. Dressing is not about your comfort, it is about representing your values to the world. Is your highest value to be comfortable? Really, is that your deepest calling? I didn’t think so. Pull up your control top panty hose and let’s get on with it, ladies!

The more unstructured the garment, the more effort you should put into being polished and elegant. Consider yourself lucky that you’re glamorous duds feel as comfortable as pajamas and make sure the rest of you is piss elegant and fabulous.


Get your hair done, get your make-up done if you don’t know how to do it. You simply do NOT show up in this amazing Art Nouveau shawl looking anything less than Auntie Mame Level of gorgeous. Nor do you even consider wearing anything less than a 2.5″ heel with this. If you can’t hack that, don’t get the garment. Not everyone can wear everything, and just because you love it doesn’t mean you can pull it off. Hard lesson but one we all need to embrace.


I’m not really sure what’s going on in this image — this woman may just be trying on the duster, but this is exactly what I mean. The casual wash-and-go hair is not living up to the garment AT ALL. Nice necklace but she needs some glamour factor for sure. Some theatricality is called for with something this extraordinary, and if that’s not your cup of tea, please step away from the high drama garments.

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YOU MAY NOT WEAR LEGGINGS

PeaceBang is LAYIN’ DOWN THE LAW, women of God!

No, you may not wear leggings. NO. Just no. To the gym, to hot yoga, that is IT. Do not do it in public. Seriously. Leggings are among the most dignity-impairing garments devised by man and adopted by the general female public and you are NOT to fall prey to this satanic temptation.


No. With a dress and boots in the winter, fine. Any other usage, NO.

Lord of Hosts, NO. If I see you in these I will fall to the floor and roll around with my tongue lolling out like some medieval poisoned monarch.

No, and these do NOT count as pants if you’re leaving the gym. They count as skin-tight leggings so put something over your butt, please.

So you’re like, “PeaceBang, I just got this really cute tunic from Handiworks of India which is a small company dedicated to paying Indian women a fair wage and why would I totally not wear this with leggings?

Or this kurta?

And I will say, “Because leggings are hideous, tacky, 80’s, inappropriate, not for women over 20 (again, unless it’s winter), they’re blech and NO NO NO.”

But it’s all in the details, darlings, so listen up. What you CAN do is find a cute pair of fitted capri yoga pants that have a tiny bit of roomy flare and those will be fine.

You just want to avoid the skin-tight ankle situation, which is what renders leggings so utterly loathsome.
See?

Tacky, tacky, tacky.

Fine. Wear a cute pair of strappy, sporty sandals like these or a pair of gladiator flats and you’re adorbs.

Athena sandal by J-41 and if you find them in a size 6 anywhere I will give you one of my fingers for them. And I mean that. You can HAVE ONE OF MY FINGERS.[This just in 6/10/11: Remind me to put one of my fingers in the mail to the Rev. Erika Hewitt. – PB]

As life is generally more casual in the summer months I see no reason why you should not wear a floaty tunic and yoga pants or skinny jeans to work. With sandals. And a nice pedicure.
OF COURSE YOU KNOW BETTER than to wear yoga pants of any kind with a short shirt. You understand that these sporty little bottoms do NOT COUNT AS PANTS for clergywomen and are only to be worn with tunics or short dresses, am I correct?

Of course I am.