Monday, August 17, 2009

Women's Clothing not for Ladies Anymore

Finding modest clothing increasingly difficult for women, and mothers shopping for teen girls. Employers, churches and schools vary in response to revealing clothing, from persuasion to mandatory dress codes.

-- From "Fashionable vs. modest apparel becomes an issue in Colorado" by Claire Trageser and Electa Draper, The Denver Post 8/17/09

. . . at Denver Advertising, a Christian-based agency . . . Mike Lash, the agency's director, said the woman [employee] would often wear cropped or low-cut shirts and too- short skirts. Lash had another female employee suggest clothing that might be more appropriate.

"Revealing clothing can be distracting and can send the wrong message," Lash said. "We don't want a client that wants us for our breast size."

Finding fashionable and modest clothing can be difficult for everyone from preteens to middle-aged women.

. . . said Mark Huebner, 27, the head of Motive Branding, a small marketing agency in Denver . . . "I'm not going to tell you what you can and can't wear, but don't make me have to send you home," he said.

At Denver Public Schools, the rules are a little stricter.

Antwan Wilson, the instructional superintendent of DPS and former principal at Montbello High School, said he was the first to implement a high school uniform three years ago. Student dress had become a distracting topic of conversations with parents.

The district has minimum dress standards, and each high school can make them more stringent.

During the June 14 Evening Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput used his homily to address the topic.

"I think the Lord is always displeased if we dress immodestly," Chaput said. "We should be modest in our dress everywhere, especially in church."

Sallie Hurley of Englewood, a former fashion designer, fought back against the trend toward revealing clothes.

Hurley's complaints are echoed by other consumers who are part of the "modesty movement," a backlash, perhaps evident earlier among faith- based groups but spreading in recent years to the wider secular society.

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