London – They may not often grace the pages of Vogue, but strictly Orthodox women regularly reinterpret celebrity and catwalk fashion – with a modest twist, according to research by the London College of Fashion.
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Chassidic women have interpreted mainstream fashion trends such as knitwear with embellished shoulder detail, ruffles, 60s-style pill box hats and evening dresses tempered with white shirts to cover a plunging neckline. Sheitls have trendy wispy fringes, or swinging ponytails with girly bows.
Speakers at London College of Fashion symposium on ‘Mediating Modesty’ spoke of detailed research they had conducted into frum fashion.
One of them, Barbara Goldman Carrel, from New York’s City University has conducted an in-depth study of Chassidic women’s fashion. She said: “When I told people I was studying Chassidic fashion, they said ‘Is there such a thing?’ But more and more people are finding fashion is something to be embraced, not reviled.
“The Chassidic womenswear shops in Borough Park, Brooklyn, have displays from fashion magazines, with chic scarf covers for parts of the picture which are immodest, like bare shoulders. One woman I met while doing the research told me, ‘we have to be modest, but no-one says we have to be backward.’ Tzniut (modest) fashion is intangible, it’s down to interpretation, apart from requirements about how high a neckline should be, and skirt and sleeve length.
 “She said she was amazed to see photos from fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar on the walls of Chassidic dress shops and custom-made, modest versions of the latest designer dresses made in the shops. Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein are particularly popular brands.”
Even men’s suits are made with a fashionable awareness, Ms Goldman Carrel said. “The fabrics are luxurious; there are individual twists on traditional styles that you can see if you look closely.”
She said there was an explosion of tzniut fashion blogs online, including Fashion-Isha and Frum Fashionista with Jewish women taking inspiration from modest styles seen in the pages of Vogue and other fashion magazines.
it’s nice to be fashionable to an extent but not to be a slave to what some parisian goy says or to put one’s self in debt to by highend clothing.
tznius does not mean “covered” tznius means “hidden” kol kvuda bas melech pnima.A women should look neat & presentable when in public but should not stand out & draw att: to herself. that is for the husband only
Tznius means NOT following a trend, I may take this a degree further but at least I’m not being dictated to and I’m still tzniusdik.
“tznius does not mean “covered” tznius means “hidden””
Actually, the dictionary definition of צניעות is “modesty”.
Those dresses are awful!
A women who is dressed in a tzinisusdike style could easily be on the cover of Vogue and not violate halacha. She is a baas melech, and what could make other women more desirous of dressing the same way than to see such a frumme woman on the cover of vogue. Putting her on the cover of Hamodia would have exactly the opposite effect.
Many non-Jews have remarked to me of the dichotomy of seeing kaftan wearing, black hatted, long bearded men dressed in 18th century garb walking next to their wives who are dressed to kill. Takeh, many Yidden find this odd as well.
Correct, Tznius is not about wearing the most up to date, tight fitted clothing, its all about dressing put together in a way that doesn’t scream “look at me”. That’s the whole point why we have tznius guidelines, not to draw attention from others!!!!!
tzinus does not mean wearing black from head to toe either. i remember in bp years ago that meant u were an italian widow…so now its ok to look like a goyta…and if you are fat, you still look fat wearing black.