What We Say with What We Wear
By Cristie B. Gardner

A few years ago, my husband and I had to stop at a home improvement store on our way home from a Saturday stake meeting. Stan was dressed in a suit with a white shirt and tie, and I was wearing a nice dress with stockings and heels.

Entering the store, we chuckled to each other about how incongruent our appearance was, compared with everyone else there (paint-spattered overalls and torn T-shirts were the norm). What happened next astounded us, and the subtle message has stayed with us since.

As we walked in the door, a clerk met us and asked how he could help us to locate what we needed. We told him we just wanted to pick up a few items. A few other clerks gathered around us and offered to go and get the items for us, so we wouldn’t have to walk all over the store.

Simultaneous with their offer, they took off, almost running, to fetch the things on our list. Within a couple of minutes, a woman came up to us and introduced herself. She happened to be visiting from corporate headquarters, and she asked what she could do to help us with our purchases.

We appreciated their extra-mile service, but we had to ask ourselves: what made so many of the staff run to help us find our purchases, while ignoring the other store customers? The only difference, we realized, was in our dress.

Curb Appeal

Nearly all of us love watching the shows on television that demonstrate how to add curb appeal to our home, how to inexpensively mimic an expensive designer’s look in our living room, how to be more organized, how to “stage” our home so that it sells.

The whole genre of home improvement has caught our attention. And, in a similar vein, we love going out to eat, enjoying the visual presentation of the food. But if we are going to that much effort to make our surroundings lovely and pleasing and to tempt our palate, what are we doing, as children of God, to look our personal best? We need to enhance our own visual presentation, to “stage” ourselves — add a little “curb appeal!” What blessings do we deny ourselves when we do not visibly convey the message of who we are?

Judith Rasband recognizes that there is a definite disconnect there, one that needs readjustment. Active in the fashion industry for over 40 years, Judith is concerned about the message we send to ourselves and others by how we choose to dress — a message that scriptures and prophets have warned about repeatedly. She has become a voice for the importance of realizing the history behind current fashion trends before we buy into the clothes being thrust upon us in the name of style.

“Trash fashion” has become the name of the game,” Judith declared recently to a large group of women in our stake. “The more faded, dirty looking, or torn the item, the higher the price it often commands.”

The Message We Send

Judith started out in college to be a dancer, but an injury forced her to choose another profession. Clothing caught her attention and became her passion. She spends full time speaking, teaching, training, and writing about the message we send by the clothes we wear. She has researched the background sources behind the current fashion trends, and what she has discovered is downright scary.

For example: Ever wonder why boys wear baggy pants that hang down around their knees, showing their underwear? That trend came about, following the standards of dress for prisoners, Judith explains.

Prisoners were not allowed to have belts because they could hang themselves, and they were forced to wear baggy pants that would continually fall down so escapees couldn’t run as fast. Chains, reminiscent of a chain gang, often complete the current look.

Judith asks the question: if your son knew that his clothing choice reflects the look of a jailed criminal, would he mindlessly embrace this odd and demeaning fashion trend? Education can go a long way in helping us to make more informed, critical choices about our clothing.

And what about the current trend for girls to wear lacey undershirts that reveal rows of lace underneath their overshirts? Judith reminds us that practice comes historically from women who chose to advertise their availability by making their underwear appear on the outside.

The whole emphasis today on showing cleavage, midriffs, bellies and thighs is “downdressing,” Judith explains, and it sends a message that girls are open to advances and abuse. Judith advises girls to think carefully about the messages they send with their clothing choices.

Fashion versus Style

Judith maintains that there is a distinct difference between “fashion” and “style.” There is a tendency to slavishly follow the fashion trends, rather than to establish our own personal style first, and then buy accordingly. Poring over current “fashion” magazines, and then mindlessly buying the latest “hot” items, can leave the wearer with a closet full of uncoordinated, out-of-style clothes the very next season.

Judith recommends staying with basic, classic styles that coordinate with each other and transcend time. These core items she organizes into what she terms “clusters,” then adds a mix of finishing touches with classic, trendy, but tasteful items. The result is a confident wearer, whose clothes appropriately and accurately reflect a personal style. These clothes last and look great for years.

But what about clothing cost? Is it possible to dress well without spending a fortune? Judith refers to the irony in spending a significant percentage of our income getting home “makeovers,” new cars, going out to dinner, and even having plastic surgery, while paying no attention to our appearance.

She says that classic styles — styles that transcend time and are always in fashion — are available everywhere, from thrift and secondhand stores to chain stores and designer boutiques. And she cautions that money is not the issue.

You can spend a fortune in trendy stores that feature huge billboards of shirtless male models and underdressed, provocative females. Judith points out that “they’re not advertising clothing!” Yet teens and their parents buy the clothes inside the store, not realizing what message they are supporting with their clothing dollar.

And the clothes sold inside for top dollar are often made with inferior fabric and construction. Judith tells us the trend to wear clothes with unfinished hems and seams, that look torn, dirty or bleached, is called “deconstruction.”

Prophetic Confirmation

Judith stresses the difference between style and fashion. She quotes President Spencer W. Kimball who warned about this, way back in the early 1950’s. He even identified the trend with his statement, which has proven to be prophetic:

We are witless accomplices in Satan’s efforts to deconstruct the tradition for modest, beautiful styles in clothing to ragged jeans and T-shirts with stupid pictures (Spencer W. Kimball, “A Style of Our Own,” BYU, 13 February 1951).

More recently, in the October 2005 General Conference, both Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and Sister Susan W. Tanner encouraged members to recognize their personal worth and dress as children of God. Sister Tanner asked,

What would happen if we truly treated our bodies as temples? The result would be a dramatic increase in chastity, modesty, observance of the Word of Wisdom, and a similar decrease in the problems of pornography and abuse, for we would regard the body, like the temple, as a sacred sanctuary of the Spirit. Just as no unclean thing may enter the temple, we would be vigilant to keep impurity of any sort from entering the temple of our bodies.

Likewise, we would keep the outside of our bodily temples looking clean and beautiful to reflect the sacred and holy nature of what is inside, just as the Church does with its temples. We should dress and act in ways that reflect the sacred spirit inside us.

And in an encouraging follow-up to Sister Tanner’s descriptions of modesty in behavior and dress, Elder Holland continued with much the same message:

I make a special appeal regarding how young women might dress for Church services and Sabbath worship. We used to speak of "best dress" or "Sunday dress," and maybe we should do so again.

In any case, from ancient times to modern we have always been invited to present our best selves inside and out when entering the house of the Lord — and a dedicated LDS chapel is a "house of the Lord." Our clothing or footwear need never be expensive, indeed should not be expensive, but neither should it appear that we are on our way to the beach.

When we come to worship the God and Father of us all and to partake of the sacrament symbolizing the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we should be as comely and respectful, as dignified and appropriate as we can be. We should be recognizable in appearance as well as in behavior that we truly are disciples of Christ, that in a spirit of worship we are meek and lowly of heart, that we truly desire the Savior's Spirit to be with us always.

Clear Message

The message is clear, but we’re not always getting it, Judith has realized. She holds up a man’s suit in one hand, and a faded, short jean skirt with prestained smudges on the front and a hoody in the other. Mentioning that the skirt is often accompanied by “flip flops,” Judith asks how well the women of the Church are equal to the men in their choice of Sunday wear. All too often, women are dressing down, which indicates that they do not understand their worth.

Flip flops, jean skirts, T-shirts, hoodies, and hair twisted up into a hasty, messy ponytail, are not fitting companions to white shirts, ties, and suits.

Judith wants to do what she can to help people understand the messages we are sending by what we wear. She has developed a Style Scale system that anyone can use to recognize the various styles of clothing that are appropriate for different situations. In a nutshell, she has demystified what it means to be dressed in “business casual,” or “formal” and “semiformal.”

Judith has also studied and written extensively on what patterns and styles are most flattering for various figure types. Demonstrating with the various styles, she shows how a change in what we wear can affect the message we send out.

Her message came across loud and clear to the women and young women in our stake. Shortly after Judith’s Saturday presentation, several young women made a beeline to the nearest mall, to rethink their wardrobes and make careful purchases that conveyed more appropriate messages.

As we visited together later about the messages we send to ourselves and others by what we wear, a friend of mine described going into a mall on a hurried errand following a workout session. Dressed in her sweats, with her hair uncombed, she had gone up to a cosmetics counter to request a free sample of a new product (shortly beforehand, she had received a postcard in the mail asking her to stop in for a sample).

After waiting for a while to be served, the woman mentioned the postcard to the clerk behind the counter. The sales clerk insisted that it was against policy to provide free samples and turned her back toward my friend.

A few days later, dressed in a skirt and heels, my friend happened to be in the same store and approached the cosmetics counter. This time, the sales clerks eagerly provided samples, with more than one approaching to assist my friend with her requests.

From the time we are children, “dressing up” or putting on costumes, allows us to portray a part. Whether it’s a pirate or a princess, what we wear has a major influence upon us.

Dressing appropriately for the occasion, while encouraging the subtle benefits of added respect among those with whom we associate, more fully represents sons and daughters with a divine Parenthood. We just plain feel better when we look our best! And Judith Rasband has a mission in helping us understand the messages we convey by what we wear.

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