Once, I heard two women talking disparagingly about a store. “You know,” said one with disgust, “I just went into that store, and they had last year’s styles out on the rack!” Her friend nodded in commiseration.
I remember that conversation well, because it was the first time I realized there was such a thing as last year’s style! To my way of thinking, if the outfit was nice last year, it is nice this year as well. It seems, however, that even if our old things are still attractive, buying new clothes for Yom Tov is a tradition of Jewish life. The Gemara tells us to increase simchas Yom Tov by giving everybody what makes them happy. We are encouraged to buy wine for the men, treats for the children, and clothing for the women. So, yes, buying clothes can actually be a mitzva! But it can also be a huge headache for the fashion-challenged.
“I have a hard time finding new clothes,” laments Miriam, the mother of a large family. “Shopping with my daughters can be trying because one of them is the tznius (modesty) police and the other one is the fashion police. At least when I wear my Yom Tov clothes I know that I am completed covered – both tznius-wise and fashion-wise,” she adds with a laugh.
Let’s face it, some of us care more about style than others. Like Miriam, I find the “laws” of fashion a little mysterious. To better understand this esoteric subject, I decided to speak with the proprietors of some of our community’s fashion-centric businesses. While we can shop at regular stores, there is something special about buying from people in our community who are intimately familiar with our needs and customs.
I wanted to ask them whether the fashion trends in the religious community are affected by the fashions of the secular world. Does the “designer in Paris” influence the clothing and make-up choices of Baltimore’s frum community? How do the proprietors of the stores in our community choose what to bring to Baltimore? Do they customize their clothing selections to their customers?
Who Decides What Is in Style?
Fashion designers are the ones who decide on the styles and trends for each season. The designers take part in Fashion Week events, usually held during February and September, in Paris, London, Berlin, and Milan. These fashion industry events allow fashion designers at the various brands (or “houses”) to display their latest collections at runway shows, and they enable buyers and the media to take a look at the latest trends. Manufacturers take their cues from the high fashion items shown at Fashion Week events to create similar but less expensive lines of clothing. The manufacturers who produce clothing for the frum community, in turn, use the concepts of the fashion designers to create clothing that conforms to halacha but is still stylish.
As Chana Perel Benzaquen of BZ Cosmetics explains, “High fashion is an art form, and it often reflects the social, economic, and/or political atmosphere of a particular era. For example, in the 80s when the stock market was booming, people wore bright colors; overdone, colorful clothing; and large patterns and shapes. During the recent recession, fashion became simpler, not overstated. Today, people have gotten tired of cutting back, and bright colors and big accessories are coming back into style.”
Makeup artists like Chana Perel and Shaindee Kelman of Shaindee Cosmetics keep up with fashion trends by reading magazines, attending seminars, and doing research online. Then they adapt the newest styles to their clientele. As Shaindee says, “If the fashion for this season is bright red or orange, we may use a softer version of that color for women who feel that the bright color is too red. We have lots of different shades of each color so we can pick the perfect shade for everyone.”
Changing Styles
The Yom Tov clothing that we shop for today is very different from the clothing that people wore many years ago. We can see for ourselves how fashion evolves. Look at a wedding picture from a hundred years ago. Although people are dressed in their best finery, to our eyes they look more like performers in a play. Everything about them is dated – their hair styles, shoes, ties, and hats, even their grim, unsmiling expressions.
Every season, styles change a bit, and over the years the look becomes really different. One year, sober black pencil skirts are all the rage; another year it might be colorful swirly skirts. One year the color orange is in, and another year it is burgundy. One year everyone wears brownish lipstick, and other years everyone’s lips are bright red. Even the rules like never wearing clashing colors such as orange and purple or never wearing two different patterns seem to have been forgotten. Navy blue and black didn’t used to match, but, somehow, today they do. The nisyonos (challenges) of tznius also change according to the fashion. Some years, shorter skirts are in, so it is harder to follow the dictates of halacha, other years the fashion is longer skirts, so it is easier.
“Men’s clothing styles are not immune to fashion, either,” says Shulamis Juravel of The Hattery. “Hat brims can be narrower, or wider. Hats can have feathers, pearl pins or no decoration at all. Suits may have two buttons or three buttons, be single- or double-breasted. They may have one vent, two vents, or no vents. Pants come with pleats or without pleats. Shirts have spread collars and non-spread collars. They can be regular fit, slim fit, or extra-slim fit.” A boy may look at his mother in horror if she suggests he wear a suit in perfect condition that his brother outgrew a few years ago. “It is completely out of style,” he may say. “Everyone will laugh at me.”
Some people think that caring about fashion means that you are focused on the externals (gashmius) instead of the internals (pnimiyus). Wanting to avoid the stigma of shallowness, they say they are not affected by fashion. But even the least materialistic among us are slowly and subtly affected by current styles. Clothes that used to be suitable will begin to look old-fashioned even to non-fashion-conscious eyes. But there is hope for all of our outdated clothing, because those old outfits or shoes will probably come back into style one day. “It always surprises me that people wear styles that they were sure they would never wear,” says Shirley Rosinsky of The Shoe House. “Style goes in cycles. Things that were out of fashion for years are back in slightly different form, and because they are in style, folks are willing to wear them.”
Who Decides What Is in Baltimore’s Stores?
Storeowners carefully choose what is available each season. As Sima Goldstein of Hats to Hose explains, “I go to New York 10 to 15 times a year to order clothing. We see what designers are showing, and we try to choose clothing that will be attractive to the women and children of our community.” She emphasizes, “We try to please all the different segments of the community. An effort is made to have clothing that will appeal to the fashion conscious and to those who want to be fashion conscious. Right now, color is back in style, which makes the clothing more appealing to the eye.”
The storeowners use their expertise and intuition to find clothing for their Baltimore customers. Yehudis Sanders, of Peppermint Girls, goes to a big New York children’s clothing show called ENK two or three times a year. “There are hundreds of vendors there from all over the world, including places like Peru and Turkey. I go in October to choose clothing for the next summer and in March to pick clothing for the winter. I browse all that is being offered and choose what I think people here will appreciate. But,” she adds, “sometimes an expected failure will be an unexpected success. I once brought home an outfit to sell in different sizes, and a friend thought it was really ugly. She encouraged me to send it back because nobody would buy it. I kept it in the store, and to my friend’s surprise, all the sizes of that outfit flew of the shelves in a week and a half!”
It is wonderful to have a beautiful dress for Yom Tov, but it loses its luster a little if all your friends have the same dress. Some storeowners make an effort to make sure that if you buy a beautiful dress for daughter, you will not see all her friends wearing the same dress. “I make sure that I only buy one of each style in each size,” says Yehudis, “and I also try to carry clothing that other stores are not carrying.”
Another aspect of fashion that some storeowners take into account is tznius. Since these are the clothes members of Baltimore’s Jewish community will be wearing, storeowners bear some of the responsibility for choosing clothing that conforms to halachic standards. “We stopped selling certain lines of woman’s clothing, because the manufacturers were using very clingy material and we just felt they were not modest,” says one proprietor. Another storeowner explains, “I try to make sure that the clothes I sell will be long enough and not too tight, but in the end it is up to the customer. I can suggest that they might want to try on an outfit they love in a larger size, but it is their decision. I am not their rebbetzin, unless they ask me to be. It’s a balancing act to encourage people to choose clothing that is tzniusdik without pushing my opinions on them.”
Rivka Malka Perlman of Wrapunzel takes special pride in helping each customer find clothing that will really complement her. She uses a system called Dressing your Truth by Carol Tuttle, which teaches about the different “energies” and how they relate to color, texture, and style. “We try to help women find scarves and colors that match their energy,” she says. “For example, everyone can wear the color blue, but some resonate with sky blue, some with peacock blue, and some with navy blue. With fabric, too, different kinds of material suit different personalities. We try to honor the woman sitting in the chair and not just pick what’s ‘in style.’”
Once in a while, a new idea comes along which radically changes the way we dress and the way we shop. One such idea is the shell. Blumi Weil of Shell Li explains, “Look around at a wedding or in shul, and you will see that almost every woman is wearing a shell. Shells have opened up the world to frum shoppers. It makes it possible to go into any store and purchase almost any top . Frum companies are now even making clothes without sleeves, because it is trendier to wear a shell. Shell manufactures do research to find out the newest colors of each season and make sure that the shells we sell match exactly to that season’s colors,” adds Mrs. Weil. “Some customers bring in their whole wardrobe so we can match up all the colors.”
What About the Children?
Like adult styles, children’s clothing styles are different also than they used to be. Instead of pink, frilly dresses with crinolines that spin when you twirl, our little girls are dressing like small adults in somber colors and tailored cuts. Too bad if they have no waist to hold up their skirts; they are still wearing skirts!
Mothers put a lot of effort into finding stylish clothing for their children. Some families love hand-me-downs and save all their children’s clothes for the next sibling in line. But what happens if the oldest girl is10 and the next girl is a new baby? In 10 years will the clothes still be in style? “Probably not,” says Mrs. Brown.* “Fashions change so much that keeping clothing for a decade is probably not worth it. Better give it to your niece who will be that size next year. Now, in 50 years, the style will probably come back, but siblings are not usually 50 years apart! And if the clothing is not in style, the younger sibling won’t want to wear it, because young children these days have opinions too.”
“I don’t argue with my children about what they wear,” says Mrs. Paley.* “I let them choose their own clothes. My three-year-old daughter insisted on wearing an ugly pair of yellow pants every day, even on Shabbos. My friend was horrified and suggested I throw the yellow pants in the garbage. “You’re the mother,” she said, “You should be the boss!” I somehow couldn’t bring myself to throw away my daughter’s favorite pants. Then one day I went to pick up my friend’s daughter for carpool. Suddenly the front door opened and her little girl ran out in her pajamas! My friend came running after her, exclaiming, “We just can’t agree on what she should wear!” I guess being the boss is not always so easy.
Another mother, Mrs. Roberts,* said, “My mornings are going so smoothly now that my daughter Chani is in kindergarten. She has to wear a uniform, so there is no more arguing, and she finally looks put together every day.”
Ever since Adam and Chava ate from the tree in Gan Eden – setting that first fashion year’s style as fig leaves and animal skins – we and our children have been faced with the daily decision of what to wear. The clothing we choose may be adapted to the mores of the frum community, but they nevertheless reflect the decisions of the fashion designers in New York, Paris, Milan, London, and Berlin. The storeowners and their staff work hard to bring clothes to Baltimore so that we can look our best and most stylish on Yom Tov and every day.
* a pseudonym
