A Right Royal Wedding

Everyone is talking about it. The date is almost here, and just like in the 80's, every woman is going to be glued to a television screen to watch Kate walk down the aisle. Discussions are going to be held about the dress, the shoes, the accessories, the veil, the kiss and somewhere Prince William is also going to get a mention.

Let's backtrack a bit. Royals used to be the trensetters, so much so that peasants were not allowed to wear certain items or fabrics or styles. The most famous princess of the 20th century was Princess Diana. She carried herself with poise, grace an feminity that caught the attention of the world. She set a trend for cerise pink and red to be worn together. And who still remembers her "black sheep" jumper? But most importantly, her evening wear set trends for many a prom dress (matric-ball) and many a bridesmaid and bride found herself dressed in puff-sleeves and bows. Althought the Brittish royals are in the media, they have not managed to set the trends since Lady Diana.

If we go back to the beginnings of kingship, it becomes clear that what we see as Kingdoms today are nothing more than one in name, not one in power. A King was considered to be the most powerful person in a country and got to rule often by taking over territories from others. Waging war was part and parcel of their lives. In exchange for protecting their subjects and gaining land for them, they were obligated to provide him with produce of the country. Yes, admittently, this was also often abused and either the subjects rebelled or someone within the king's household usurped the throne by assassinating the king.

Because Kings were honoured by other kings, queens and rulers, they amassed treasured beyond imagination. These included clothing, spices, gold, silver, pearls and precious stones. The clothing was of the finest linen, with gold thread woven into the fabric or dyed with purple (indigo). Marriages were entered into to seal a deal with a rival or ally. Certainly seldom were they for love. What a different picture we see in the upcoming wedding.

So, what does this have to do with this blog. Many of you will already know where I am heading, so here goes.....

If we, as Christians are considered royalty, what trends are we supposed to set, and what do our weddings look like? Are we focussed on worldy rends or do we advocate something else? Are our weddings about brides, dresses and food or are they about something bigger?

Please understand me correctly. I am not saying that we cannot buy luxurious clothing or splurge on certain items from time to time. It depends obviously on your stewadship and what motivation you have in spending lots of money. Is the motivation to be different, to be sexy, to be attractive or are there other reasons? Are we drawn by the advertising of a particular brand? Ultimately we need to ask ourselves if these things affect our relationship with Jesus and whether we are still behaving like a royal family.

Weddings are supposed to be about the union between a man and a woman, who make a promise before God to live a certain way. Yes, there is a dress, there's a bride and of course there is a celebration, but these are not the most important. We celebrate these things, because they point to another relationship and an upcoming wedding which will outshine the one in April a millionfold. We will be the bride and HE the bridegroom and there will be a dress of white, fine linen and there will be a celebration so magnificent that we cannot imagine it right now.

Lyrics in line with this blog

Thanks to Barlowgirl for addressing this issue:

Clothes
Clothes aren't what they used to be
They don't seem to fit you and me anymore
Modesty is the door
Flaunting what we've got and more is in
Yeah it's in

They're saying
Don't ask why just wear what we say
You'll look like a model if you'll only obey
To get the attention, just do what we say

Pay so much for clothes so small
Was that shirt made for me or my doll?
Is this all I get?
I looked so hot but caught a cold
I was doing just what I was told
To fit in

We're saying let's ask why
Don't wear what they say
Don't want to be a model
They can't eat anyway
That kind of attention will fade with the day

Clothes that fit are fine
Won't show whats mine
Don't change my mind
I'll be fine

taken from http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/barlowgirl-lyrics/clothes-lyrics.html

The Princess Print

This is probably the only print I would buy for a little girl. I find this so appropriate  for every Christian woman. We are daughters of the KING of the Universe and thus are princesses. Do we behave like royalty?

Updates

No, none yet. I have been busy getting my Masters Proposal together and my head is filled with "Multimodal Literacy" and "Semiotic Chains" and some such things. If these terms do not make sense, don't worry, it's all about meaning-making. Actually the translation process from design to finish garment in the three major subjects in a Diploma in Fashion.

That being said, more God-related fashion-y stuff will follow soon. I have not run out of ideas yet. I am just not sure which direction to go - sub-cultures or accessories or current trends. Leave a comment and I will take it from there.

Accessories

Here is a brilliant alternative to the charm bracelet and standing up for purity in the process. Again, the story is taken from "Brining up Girls" by Dr James Dobson (2010) (for the purpose of this blog, I just want to paraphrase and not retell the entire story. Buy the book to read it. I found it to be the most touching part.) I know I did not write down the reference, for the original story, but the book was a gift for someone else, and although I read it, I do no longer have it :)


So, here is the story:

On her 16th birthday the woman, who tells the story, was taken by her parents to her favourite restaurant to officiate an agreement between her and them to being able to finally date. The agreement was that she could date any guy she wanted, and being a child of God had to agree to keeping pure in the following way:

Her dad handed over a charm braclet: Gemstone after gemstone was revealed on a silver bracelet. There were 6 gems, each diferent interspersed with 6 smaller ones in between (sapphires). The six different ones were 1) a piece of polished granite, 2) pink quarz, 3) an emerald, 4) a pearl, 5) a ruby and 6) a diamond.

All gems were symbolic: the six sapphires were there to remind her how beautiful and valuable she is to God and her parents. The granite was for the first time a guy held her hand, the quarz for her first kiss, the emerald for her first boyfriend, the pearl for the first time she said "I love you" to a guy other than her dad, the ruby for her first engagement and the diamond for the first time she will say "I do".

The deal, however was becomming more complicated. She had to remove the gem and hand it to the guy who held her had, kissed her, etc etc. She was feeling valued beyond belief, but I think her parents were very intelligent, because if she could not find it in her heart to hand over the gem, she could not give away the things they represented. She learned this lesson very fast - as quick as a few weeks later when I guy wanted to hold her hand and she could not see herself part with a piece of granite. Needless to say, she met a guy who admired her bracelet and never tried to do anything but ask her to marry him and on her wedding day she handed over the entire bracelet to him. Now her daughter is wearing it.....

Lets think about that a while - I'm not advocating we should spend the amount of money that her dad spent on her, but every cent was worth it, in the end. I do think, however if you want to make this a tradition, the stones need to be expensive and not just pieces of glass because it needs to hurt when you give the gem away.

The other alternative is a Salvation bracelet, that can also be decked out with various gems.

The colours are symbolic and represent the story of salvation (a very good talking point if people should ask)
Black: Sin, which separates us from God
Red: The blood of Christ, when He died for us.
Blue: Baptism - when we receive Christ and show our faith
Green: Our spirit grows in love for Him
White: We are made pure through forgiveness
Gold: Heaven, where the streets are paved with gold.

Modesty Part 3 (an Apology)

Apologies and corrections....

I have written previously about Pure Fashion, without actually knowing the real story behind it. I think I was quite critical of some of the outfits shown, but when I read the real reason behind Pure Fashion, I need to apologise and write it here.

I have taken this excerpt from Dr James Dobson's book "Bringing up Girls" (2010) - from the article "Standing Up to 'Girls gone Wild' Culture " by Michelle Malkin, as quoted by him:

First, let me tell you about my new hero. Her name is Ella Gunderson, and she's a student at Holy Family Parish School in Kirkland, Washington. As reported in the Seattle Times a few months ago, Ella recently wrote a remarkable letter to the Nordstom's department store chain.
"Dear Nordstrom," she began. "I'm an 11-year-old girl who has tried shopping at your store for clothes, in particular jeans, but all of them ride way under my hips, and the next size up is too big and falls down. They're also way too tight, and as I get older, show everything every time I move. I see all of these girls who walk around with pants that show their belly button and underwear. Even at my age I know that that is not modest. With a pair of clothes from your store, I'd walk around showing half of my body and not fully dressed... Your clerk suggested there is only one look. If that is true then girls are supposed to walk around half naked. I think maybe you should change that."

All it took was one little girl to speak her mind about the excesses of our "Girls Gone Wild" culture. And guess what? The market, in a small way responded. Nordstrom executives wrote back and pledged to young Ella Gunderson that they would broaden the clothes for girls. "Your letter really got my attention," wrote Kris Allan, manager of the local Nordstrom's where Ella shopped. "I think you are absolutely right. This look is not particularly a modest one and there should be choices for everyone."...

Here's the best part. She and her friends didn't wait around for Nordstrom's (sic) to change its inventory. With help from the mom and 37 of her classmates, Ella organised a fashion show to model decent clothes for girls aged 10 to 16. The sold-out show, called "Pure Fashion", drew a crowd of 250; two other clothing stores donated modest clothes; the girls got a standing ovation; and the event raised money for the Catholic Challenge Club network, which encourages young girls to stand up for their faith and their values in an increasingly secular and hostile world.

Well done!! I may have been too critical and judgmental and salute the effort of this courageous 11 (probably 13 year-old) to stand up for her faith and challenge the status quo of the fashion industry that prescribes what girls should wear.

Indigo

I have written about indigo before .... mentioning that it was produced from a marine snail, but at the same time indigo can also be obtained from the indigo plant. The entry on Wikipedia has quite a bit of information. it is a purplish-blue colour and usually quite expensive when manufactured from one of the two organic sources.

I'm more interested in the use in fashionable garb. The most fascinating use is for the traditional garments worn by the "Blue men of the desert".

Picture from: "Colors of Africa" by Duncan Clarke

The indigo in their clothing is not dyed in the usual way, since water is scarce. Therefore the indigo is pounded into the fabric, instead of boiled, giving the fabric a beautiful sheen (as seen in the picture above), but as the garment is worn, the dye rubs off onto the skin as can be seen in the pictures below. Because indigo is an expensive dye, it has become a status symbol amongst the Tuareg; the bluer the skin, the richer the wearer. The Tuareg have  always fascinated me and only after visiting quite a few sites did I come across the fact that the Tuareg use the indigo plant to dye their clothes.

Other African tribes use indigo for items like the one below.

 Indigo resist dye, hand-spun cotton; Dyula peoples, Bobo-Dioulasso region, Burkina Faso, 1990's
Taken from "The Art of African Textiles" by Duncan Clarke

All other pictures taken from this website

The most famous piece of indigo clothing we know, is denim (on which I will have to do another post).
Denim has been warp dyed, meaning that only the warp threads (the ones that run length-wise) have been dyed with the blue. Since the end of the 19th century synthetic dyes have replaced organic indigo, and linked mostly with practical fabrics and work clothes. Further information can be found here...

In the Bible, indigo is not mentioned by name, but whenever the cloth is dyed "purple" or blue, probably indigo was used. You can see that there are quite a number of references and each of them is found in relation to Kings, wealth or at least denoting some indication that the cloth was expensive. I have mentioned before that the "Proverbs 31 woman" is a trader in purple cloth, i.e. she is so rich that she can support her family so that they lack nothing.

As part of the rainbow, it is one of those colours that appear, but that people cannot usually distinguish from purple, or even see on the colour chart, because we divide the chart into three and then further into 6 (and not 7). Indigo sits between the blue and the purple on the colour chart and as such, is a beautiful colour, if you look at the reference in Wikipedia.

There is not much more to say.... happy browsing through the websites