AT HER blog Camera Lucida, Kidist Paulos Asrat reflects on the fashion world’s committment to ugliness and the celebration of the drab and ugly in modern dress. She writes:

 As I ponder more on what I’ve written [on this subject], I think the underlying premise is equality. We are all equal in our intelligence, our talents, our luck, our wealth, our youth (age), and of course our beauty. We are all beautiful. But, in order to make this equality a reality, we have to subscribe to the lowest common denominator. After all, it is much easier to lower the standards of beauty (how low can we get before we call it ugly?) than to reach for the higher echelons of beauty; it is much easier to make our young look old and haggard, to come to our level, since we can never look young and beautiful as only they can. This is the prescription to equality that we have been fed. But we don’t have to accept it.

                                                                        — Comments —

Melissa writes:

Brick and mortar peddlers of formlessly drab and unfeminine fashions (like The Gap) continue to post losses. I think more and more women are going online looking for clothes that are beautiful and feminine. What else explains the growing popularity of modcloth.com? Their most frilly and adorable dresses typically sell out within hours.

Laura writes:

The Gap display windows are incredibly bleak. Would factories hand out uniforms that were uglier and less inspiring? The faceless mannequins (remember when mannequins had eyes and noses and even wore lipstick?) look like they need heavy doses of anti-depressants just to keep standing there.

Bruce B. writes:

I think equality is also the underlying premise (or one of them) behind today’s extremely immodest women’s clothes. Note that the feminine ideal seems to have gone from “beautiful” to “hot.” Revealing clothes and the adoption of “hot” as the feminine ideal can be a form of leveling. Not every woman can be beautiful but almost every woman can get lustful looks from men by dressing in revealing clothes (today’s clothes are often VERY revealing). Note how even large girls dress scantily these days. “Hot” is more lowest-common- denominator-equal than “beautiful.” 

What do you think?

Laura writes:

That’s interesting. I never thought of it that way. Not every woman can be beautiful but every woman can put her body on display.

It’s a form of leveling influenced by the decline of femininity. The more unwomanly women become the more the undeniable aspects of womanliness are on display.

Immodest dress is also a result of  a loss of privacy and of an unconscious understanding of what privacy is. Modest clothes, at their best, are not an expression of prudery or an abhorrence of sexuality. They reflect the desire for privacy, an appreciation of intimacy and a reverence for individuality, as opposed to conformity. The conformist is prone to immodesty. The individual has something of himself in reserve, not freely given away.

Laura adds:

The twentieth-century psychologist Rudolf Allers, who was a student of Freud’s and who believed Freud vastly over-emphasized sexual drives as the motivating forces in personality, says of modesty:

What is modesty intended to defend and against what does it defend this somethings? In brief, it defends the intimacy of the personality against “indiscretion.” [The Psychology of Sex Life, p. 147]

Essentially, Allers argued that a loss of modesty signals a loss of individuality. “Indiscretion,” he said, “signifies a lack of distinction.” This is a profound and revealing concept. He wrote:

Modesty, which is usually an attitude regarded as concerning sex, is in reality connected with the deepest portions of man’s constitution.

Karen I. writes:

I find many of the dresses on the Modcloth website to be very revealing. They may be cuter or brighter than the offerings at places like Gap, but they are far too revealing. I am sending a picture of one of their “new” offerings to illustrate my point. It is listed as a dress, but at 32 inches long, that is not a dress to me! Even as a shirt, it would be too revealing. 

Bruce is right that there is a tremendous push for women to look “hot,” but while all women can expose themselves in today’s fashions, very few can really look good in them. As I approach my 40th birthday, I know several women I went to high school with that are still trying to look “hot.” Instead, even the pretty ones look desperate. “Hot” is not a look that ages well at all!

Melissa writes:

Yes, I’ve had numerous problems ordering on Modcloth. Never mind an obviously revealing style like the dress you referenced. Sometimes I’ll order something perfectly nice looking and it ends up being totally see-through! I guess you are supposed to wear slips under them? Either way, it’s a huge nuisance. I own a large number of dresses from the 50s and 60s and all of them are perfectly lined. Also many of the Modcloth dresses fail the “bend down” test with their gaping necklines and some really are just long shirts, which is okay in the winter with tights, but unacceptable in the summer. Then there are the numerous dresses that are just too tight and beyond being immodest how are you supposed to walk in them? I like that Modcloth has reviews and often other women have the same complaints.

Here is an example of a vintage dress made with see-through material, but properly lined.

Etsy is an excellent source for clothing. Vintage clothing can be expensive, but there are great deals out there and even if you spend a lot you are getting clothes that you will be able to hand down to your daughters. I’m often amazed at how quickly modern clothing falls apart.

On Modcloth there are some American-made gems that are of similar quality like this dress.

I wonder if the shapelessness of these dresses is a reflection of changing body types? I often joke that most modern dresses are just bags with elastic waists…or sometimes really just bags you are supposed to buy a belt for to add a waist. When I buy vintage I have to carefully check the waist measurements because dresses from back then actually have waists. It makes sense that the way I keep my waist is by eating a “vintage” diet on unprocessed whole foods (including some that have been wrongly demonized like lard and whole milk).

Laura writes:

It is true what Melissa says about older clothes lasting longer. I have bought vintage blouses that have lasted years and never seemed to fade. Clothing made today is almost of throwaway quality: disposable clothing.

I love that dress.

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