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Does God Call Us To Comfort In Any Wise?

When I had gone fully into elastic waistbands and full, hempen floppy look during my ministry in Maryland, I believed that comfort came first. I am a strong feminist, and I knew I could look appropriate and professional in comfortable clothes.

I had a few really sharp items for appearances at the state house or into Washington, DC for political activism, or for guest lecturing or conferences. I didn’t feel that it was necessary to compete in any sartorial way with really put-together professional women. I was, after all, a minister. A spiritual leader. Why should I make an effort to project any image in particular?

I believe that it is a point of feminist pride for most women to say, “I value comfort over fashion.” I am definitely not knocking Zorra for saying this in a recent comment, but grateful to her for reminding me how often I hear this among the clergy, and how strongly I protest its underlying sense of superiority and difference from other public leaders.

Let me say something about feminism and comfort. I believe that women in powerful positions should look powerful, or at least in control of their image and mindful of it. I believe that women in ministry have huge issues with power — ambivalence about its appropriateness, in the first place — and reflect that in their comfy Mother Earth outfits.

I don’t believe that we do justice to our calling by looking intentionally unconcerned with the dictates of fashion.

Place a female executive and a female cleric side by side (or a male executive and a male cleric, for that matter), and see who looks ready to lead, to make decisions, to command respect, and to take responsibility. It won’t be the guy in the tie with the children’s hands motif. It won’t be the woman in the batik muu-muu with the enormous pendant, the floppy cotton pants, and the sandals, with the big scrubbed face and the flat, unstyled hair.

Ministers today tend to visually project comfort, giving church-goers and religious seekers the idea that religious life is unthreatening and that it will require nothing of them beyond a juice-and-cookies kind of warmth and fellowship.

I don’t think this does justice to our calling or to the urgent relevance we assign to an engaged religious life.

I made a conscious decision when I moved to Massachusetts to tighten up, to buy some belts and zip-button trousers, to find a tailor, to wear heels, to hold myself accountable to fit into clothes of a determinate size rather than fill my closet with fat-accomodating “comfortable” items. I still have plenty of comfortable things, and I don’t spend a lot of time dressing up for every day, but I’m so glad I caught myself before I became another projector of the Church-Is-Like-Going-To-Grandma-And-Grandpa’s image.

I think this issue is dead serious, so I’ll refrain from my usual PeaceBang snarkiness. My readers can flood the comments section with testimonials about the beauty of their batik muu-muu or the theological justification for their Birkenstocks, and that’s fine. I hear you. I know you, and I love you. But I am trying to change the tide here, and that’s not going to happen by our individual defense of what is currently a woefully dowdy group of people who have a woefully dowdy public image.

Simply put, I don’t believe God calls us to comfort in the work of ministry.

P.S. When you wear structured clothing on a regular basis, they become comfortable. I can walk just as briskly in a fitted skirt as I can in a huge A-line tent. It took some getting used to, and yes, I have to be more ladylike getting in and out of the car. That’s not a bad thing. Heels are comfortable now. I purchase them carefully, with an eye for comfort and swifness of movement, and I possess many pairs that I can spend the day in with no pain at all.

Best of all, when I’ve put some effort into my outfit, I can stand side by side with any public leader in any profession and feel an equal, not like the One So Holy She Is Beyond Fashion, which actually translates to other people as One So Out Of It She’s Dressed Like a Frump.

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Banish Elastic Waists!

L’il Flava just said something about Comfort Pants recommended by Caroline Divine with which I must concur:

“There’s comfort and then there’s schlummpage.”

Even in black, yoga or workout pants are not appropriate professional wear. Big, floppy cotton pants with no shape to them (and tapered ankles don’t count as “shape”) are one of the most obvious ways to separate frumpy from fab. I KNOW we all love our floppy cotton pants from Flax and other hempy companies. I’m just saying that they’re not doing anyone looking for a sharp look any favors.

Ladies, PeaceBang is a fat, short girl with short legs and a serious jungle pouch. It is hard work for her to find pants, but she works assiduously to avoid anything with an elastic waist and a huge, floppy cotton butt. She doesn’t always succeed, but dammit, she puts in the effort. She insists on wearing pants that button and zip because she knows that if she doesn’t, it’s too easy to become a big, soft marshmallow and flumf around in clothes resembling sweatsuits, with so much material that the tushie is all over the place and you can’t even find the thighs inside the legs of the pants.

As Sister of PeaceBang once said, “The bigger the shirt, the bigger the girl.” Her point was, “don’t try to hide a chunky body inside huge, shapeless garments. We all know it’s in there.”

Pants are notoriously hard to find and to fit. That’s why you should spend serious time and effort finding cuts that work for you, plan to get them tailored when necessary, and buy two or three pairs when you find some goodies.

P.S. Just because skinny jeans are totally in this year doesn’t mean you should wear them. Tapered legs are also very au courant, but if you’re not slim and long of leg, and have an otherwise very au courant wardrobe, don’t bother. Stay with the classics, and if you’re short and have chubby legs, stick with bootcut trousers.

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Where Do Fat Girls Shop?

I can only speak for the East Coast, but here’s a run-down.

A Fat Religious Fashionista Annoted Guide To Shopping!!

Lane Bryant: The mecca for chunky goddesses. It depends on the season, but I usually have luck with basic pants and some fun pieces. Sometimes I walk in and go, “Oh, I see that this season is all about 6’2″ prostitutes.” Because otherwise why would there be so much fabric! and sequins! All with no bazoom coverage to speak of and nary a respectable fabric to be seen. Great source for pantyhose, and their Cacique line of lingerie is pretty good in the bra department. Their jewelry and bags are garbage.

Avenue: Kind of crappy, kind of ghetto, but some fun pieces. Nothing is very well-made and it won’t last long, but not a bad place to pick up some basics, although you’ll have to dig past the icky, sproingy pants (you can’t fool me into showing up at the office in sweatpants, dammit! No matter how you style them!) and the extremely flammable, cheap poly blazers. I always go to Avenue with high expectations and leave with a pair of pantyhose and a headache. I think it’s from breathing the polyester fumes.

Ashley Stewart: Don’t have one anywhere around me but I seem to recall finding some cool items there in NYC. My mother and I were the only white women in the store and found the designs to have a lot more verve than the usual plus-sized offerings. Their colors and patterns are great for women of color.

Ulla Popken: Again, I don’t have one around me, but there was one in the King of Prussia Mall near where I lived in Pennsylvania. They also have a catalog. These clothes are scaled for Scandinavian giantesses. There is no other explanation for their ginormous apparel. Also, they put things like umbrellas on their camp shirts. I shudder just to think of it. Aside from that, if you’re very tall and hefty in good proportion you might look great in some of their dresses, which always dragged all over the floor on me and had armholes down to my waist. I did get a great pair of palazzo pants from them once, which I had to have hemmed for yards but which were terrific and very well made. They have loads of dresses.

Macy’s Woman’s Department: Carries some great lines like INC., and I get all my work-out wear by Style & Co. there. Good for professional and semi-dressy clothes but casual wear tends to run along the boring, sporty Liz Claiborne line (boxy, striped, generally very unflattering, over-sized pieces) or the overly-casual Panama Joe type stuff — and thank you very much but I won’t be decorating my body with palm tree motifs any time soon.

Filene’s Fat Girls Section (Or Whatever They Call It):
If the Filene’s is in the city, it usually yields some treasures. If in the ‘burbs, stay away ’cause it’s going to be mostly about heinous, shapeless polyester “career wear” (for what career, I’d like to ask? Even bank tellers wouldn’t touch that stuff, and it’s not like they’re encouraged to have lots of fashion flair) and weird shapeless glittery or faux-boho (“fauxho”) polyester tunics that will cause you to break into hives on New Year’s Eve.
That said, I have managed to miraculously find some adorable skirts there in the past — really different, fun skirts — and the occasional really fashionable jacket or sweater. So it’s worth a poke around.

Old Navy: Cute looks that last about ten minutes, or until after the first wash. I get their t-shirts every year to wear under things and recycle them, as they inevitably fade and stain like crazy. That’s okay, because they’re like $9 each. Old Navy is good for solid, fit plus-sized gals. Their armholes and sleeves are cut very small and their pants don’t have floppy thighs. They are obviously designing for a younger, unblobby crowd. They also have the best color selection for t-shirts of anyone, again because they’re geared to a younger crowd.

Talbot’s Women:
Over-priced but well-made, classic-verging-on-boring pieces. You may find a nicely cut jacket and it’s a good source for excellent, fitted t-shirts but not a wide variety of colors (usually gaggy pastels). Worth checking for nice trousers and blazers. I always want to take their lime green little preppy display shoes and throw them across the room, as they remind me of the days of preppy mania in New Canaan, CT. If you can’t stomach preppy, don’t even go into this store.

Kohl’s: Yuck. I only cruise through Kohl’s when I’m desperate and have tried everywhere else.

J. Jill: I think the era of J. Jill is over. I think a J. Jill outfit says “crunchy granola liberal” too immediately for me to really embrace it for clergywomen.
Same goes for Chico’s. These unstructured, hempen items are becoming a kind of cliche for clergy gals, and I just don’t think they’re offering anything really beautiful or exciting lately. I think J. Jill is just a bit precious for me to wholeheartedly recommend, and Chico’s jewelry buyer seems a bit stuck in 1995.

Silhouettes Catalog: Put that catalog down and back away from it very slowly. I don’t want you to go into a suicidal depression just looking through it.

Fashion Bug Plus and Dress Barn Woman:
Really, you’d be better off just learning to sew yourself. In all seriousness, better you should invest in one pair of beautiful trousers, one perfectly fitted black skirt, one blazer and two elegant white blouses for the next ten years (you can upgrade accessories as needed) than spend your money on this garbage. Stay away. Stay far away. The buttons fall off when you look at them.

Target: Target is a hit-or-miss. A lot of times their Plus section is just full of boring, weird, cheap stuff but then you’ll hit the jackpot. Always worth a swing-through if you’re there buying garbage bags or whatever. Their shoes are so fun!

Syms: PeaceBang’s little secret. Like Loehmann’s (CT gals and guys, you know Loehmann’s, right?), you have to take your chances at this enormous discount designer warehouse, but when you hit it big, you hit it big. All of my great, oldest “name brand” pieces (a favorite Ann Klein blazer, a Liz Claiborne blazer with a tie-waist and wonderful pockets, an Evan Picone Petite blazer in a classic grey with a tie waist and gorgeous buttons, a wool Calvin Klein skirt) came from Syms and were marked down at least 70% off retail. I love that place. I go about once or twice a year and sometimes it’s strike-out, but sometimes it’s just the place to find that perfect black cashmere-soft sweater at a fraction of the retail value.

What did I miss?

And Mrs. Philocrites, would you like to do a guest column on Where Petite Religious Fashionistas Shop?

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On Caftans and Muumuus

Here is the most elegant and beautiful Isabella Rossellini, ya’ll, who has gotten quite voluptuous in her dotage. Look at her. She’s all beaming and round-faced because she’s not really modeling any more and she’s eating butter and drinking Merseault in places like Gstaad and Biarritz. She’s Isabella Rossellini. She doesn’t care if she’s got avoirdupois. She is eternally gorgeous.

Isabella

There’s a lot that works here: the big smile, the classic red lips, the colorful beads, the creative, flowing garb.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot more that doesn’t work here:
the hideous color of the caftan (she can sort of get away with it but I doubt you can, and I certainly can’t), the hacked-at hair with no movement and no shine or discernible style to it, the sneakers (ack! sneakers!?). And it’s too bad she’s dragging around that white bedspread; she looks like a first-grader heading to her first sleepover.

The caftan, ideal for hiding a multitude of sins, should ideally be about mid-thigh, and she should have beautifully flowing pants on underneath, and maybe a boot with a heel. Unless she’s been on a flight all day, in which case the dressed up sneakers might be temporarily forgiveable.

I understand that the caftan is a traditional Indian garment, or at least I think it is. And I respect that. However, she still looks like she’s swimming in it and it’s just not flattering.

The way to redeem this look would be to do something with the hair (like grow it to balance out the chipmunk cheeks), cut about half the caftan off, put on a more appropriate shoe, and stay away from mustard yellow.

She’d still do a lot better if she wore a fitted jacket or tunic and created the funky ethnic look she seems to be after with lots and lots of beads and a turban. She could absolutely tear it up in a turban.

If you want to see a really cute caftan look, check out Gwen Stefani at nine months pregnant (and I’m referring to the far left photo in particular):

cute caftan

Thanks to Go Fug Yourself for the photo.

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Ponchos: A Fleeting Moment of Bad Taste

I have mixed feelings about ponchos. On one hand, they allow women of size to feel drapey and glamorous in an unstructured, won’t-cling-to-chub manner.

On the other hand, they’re shapeless and heinous and their fifteen minutes of fame is well over. I saw some at a big church event in town tonight and honey, can you hear me say “AMEN?”

PeaceBang has one beautiful silk poncho that she wears in the summer with bootcut jeans and *very* high sandals and since her arms are free she feels not as shapeless as she otherwise would have been. She slathers on silvery make-up and wears big hair and big earrings, but she’s still not sure if she can get one more season out of the thing. Plus, this poncho comes dangerously close to the batik muu-muu that she has promised a close chum she will never wear, never, ever ever, and especially not while riding around a convention center on an Extremely Fat Person scooter at GA.*

Please, ladies and gentlemen, no
ponchos
sarapes
“wraps”
or
ambiguous crocheted “things”
unless they’re timeless, well-made pieces (think British woman walking on the heath in her woolen shawl) or you’re tall and striking enough a character to make a statement with it. If you can work the big wrap, sweetheart, work it! By all means. But it takes effort and strategy; these things don’t just succeed on their own.

P.S. Crocheted items are almost always ugly, shapeless and inevitably cheap looking, no matter how much they cost. They are not, contrary to what the lady at Dress Barn told you, “feminine and springy.” They are very fashionable this year. Caveat emptor.

* Please don’t get your collective dander up about the Fat Person Scooters. I know full well that some people with disabilities use them to get around. I also know from first-hand knowledge that in some cases the user of the scooter’s only disability is obesity. And as a Woman of Considerable Girth, it is my personal goal never to require motorized transportation for reasons of fatness only. Time may conspire to deprive us of the ability to walk at a brisk pace no matter what we do– but one of the ways we may keep our ability to walk at a brisk pace is to walk at a brisk pace!
PeaceBang is making it one of her life goals to not have to ride a scooter around GA. She has nothing against those who do, except when they yell “beep beep” and run conferees down on the way to the Service of the Living Tradition.