Revelations of Modesty part 3 - Women's Clothing Through the Last 2000 Years

My girls in Bible Costumes for a Christmas Human Video

I thought it would be a good idea, in my research on modesty, to display some pictures throughout the ages.  I wanted to show a very visual picture of how styles and modesty has changed over the years.  Most of my pictures are in the last 100 years, since that seems to be where the most drastic changes in what is acceptable has happened.

Bible Times

Medieval Times

Colonial Dress

Pioneer Dress

1880s Dress

1915 Dress

1920s dress

1940's dress

1950s dress

1960s styles

1970s fashion

1980s fashion

1990s styles

2000 styles

I had a difficult time finding women wearing pants until the 1940s and 1950s.  I found that things drastically changed for women and their apparel in the 1960s.  Suddenly, styles weren't as feminine.  Pants became the norm.

I also noticed that, even back in the early 1900s, as women's fashions began to change, more and more skin began to show.  With few exceptions, the styles still stayed feminine and discreet until the 1960s, when the sexual revolution changed how women perceived themselves.  Then, not only were pants the norm, but clothing that either blatantly copied a man's or that purposely looked seductive.  I think the very definition of what is considered feminine changed at that point.

I was raised in the late 70s and the 80s.  Jeans were the norm.  As a girl, I loved dresses.  I remember, like most little girls, loving to feel them twirl around me.  By middle school, I felt uncomfortable in a dress.  I wore jeans.  I dressed up in a dress for my 8th grade graduation.  I felt very awkward.  It wasn't until business college that wearing skirts and dresses became more normal.  Even then, I wore a lot of dress pants.

As a stay at home mom, my norm has been jeans and shorts.  For church, I have even veered away from clothes that are too dressy.  With the birth of my last daughter, I have had a tough time losing the baby weight.  Wearing dressy clothes has felt uncomfortable.  In jeans and large shirts I can hide the weight. 

Then one day I was sitting in front of a store, waiting for my daughter to check out.  I was watching the customers going in and out.  As I watched, I noticed how they all seemed to blend together.  It seemed everyone was wearing jeans of some sort, whether regular or shorts, and t-shirts.  Young and old, men and women, Christian and non-Christian, all of them sort of resembled each other.  I realized that, as much as we talk about individuality in America, we don't often practice it in practical ways.  Jeans and T-shirts are big business.  It shows in the very common style most of us wear every day.  While I don't think wearing a pair of jeans is necessarily sin, it did strike me as curious that we all looked alike.

I think God got my attention for a reason that day in the parking lot.  That moment was the initial spurring into looking into how God wants his daughters to dress.  I am trying to take a very balanced approach to my study, instead of just adopting what one group or another believes (this includes my own church).  I am researching the original Hebrew or Greek meanings of verses.  I am also reevaluating my own opinions about what is feminine and modest.