Bandwagon Time

I've spent countless hours searching the web for a way to modestly, femininely dress. Without looking like I've jumped out of a children's story book. I don't think it exists and, however much I would love to dress up like Snow White or Laura Ingles, I do wish to look like I live in this century (or at least the last one). I don't want to look like a guy (no flannel shirts and jeans; modest, yes, feminine, no.) I don't want to look like Britney Spears (no explanation needed). I want to look, well, I've already said it: modest and feminine.

Now, there are tons of websites lecturing us ladies on why we ought to be modest and feminine, mostly religious ones. We tempt men (well, duh.), we should set an example for younger women (yup), it's good for our self-respect (looking good does that), etc., etc. Great, we agree, where do I shop? What? No answers? Thought so.

That isn't exactly true. There are tons (well, okay, I've found a couple dozen) of web-sites created by women who sew (praise God! They still exist!) and are willing to sew for other women who want to dress modestly. Most of them are Amish or Mennonite and do a fabulous job at looking both modest and feminine; however, they don't generally meet my 'this century' requirement. But if that's your thing: http://www.modestclothes.com/. There are other sites that sell ready-made clothing, mostly Mormon. The nice thing in monopolizing a single state with a religion is that the stores tend to cater to that religion's standards. My favorite so far is www.mollysclothing.com (her tag-line is: "Put Something On." Now who hasn't wanted to say that to some young thing or, even worse, some older thing. There are other great sites for Jewish and Muslim women but I don't particularly want to dress quite like that.

I've also started to frequent A Dress a Day by a woman named Erin. She posts about, you guessed it, dresses. She leans more toward the vintage style and recommends dozens of patterns to try (for those women who sew whom I was talking about earlier). If nothing else it at least offers a little hope that there are ways to be modest and feminine at all.

After my hours and days and (quite honestly if you added up all the hours) weeks of searching for clothes I realized that I should probably stop complaining about there being very little material on the web to use and start posting some for the other women I'm sure are in the same predicament I'm in. I've decide, after finding other women doing this, that I'll post some of what I wear everyday to give others an idea on my take of modest and feminine. I won't post everyday because not everything I wear is worth copying :P I'm working on that. I'll warn you now that I prefer skirts and dresses but by no means believe that if you don't own either that you can't be modest and feminine. It just takes a bit more work because nothing says feminine like a skirt.