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Main >> News Listing >> June 2004 >> Article ID 5211
 Search for Miss Modesty turns out to be very revealing | Type: Internet Article |
| | Search for Miss Modesty turns out to be very revealing | Jun 15, 2004 | by Ana Veciana-Suarez
Summary:
They claim that the trashy, saucy look popularized by Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera is giving way to a new style a fashion editor at Seventeen magazine calls Miss Modesty. In other words, higher waistlines and lower hemlines, tweeds, fitted blazers and layers for the fall.
Read on for the whole article. |
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far west, an 11-year-old lass named Ella Gunderson returned home from a shopping trip with few goodies in her knapsack but much frustration in her heart. Surrounded by skin-tight tops and low-riding jeans, belly buttons and barely there shorts, the young miss could not find anything to wear. Nothing fashionable yet modest, that is.
So she penned a letter to the fine merchant. "Dear Nordstrom," she wrote, and recounted her tale, concluding: "I see all of these girls who walk around with pants that show their belly button and underwear. Your clerks suggest that there is only one look. If that is true, then girls are supposed to walk around half-naked. I think that you should change that."
This heartfelt missive made it to the tallest tower in the castle, all the way up to Pete Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom's full-line stores. Two of his executives wrote back, promising the fair damsel that the castle would educate its purchasing managers and salespeople on the different fashion choices that should be made available to shoppers.
Fairy tale? Not quite. Ella Gunderson is a real girl who lives in Redmond, Wash. According to press reports, she is shy, bespectacled and a redhead. Two things -- both quite predictable -- happened soon after she wrote that letter. She became an instant media darling, appearing on television to promote modest fashions. (Oh, how we love such quixotic stories!) And overnight she became the poster child for what pundits claim is a new trend in fashion.
They claim that the trashy, saucy look popularized by Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera is giving way to a new style a fashion editor at Seventeen magazine calls Miss Modesty. In other words, higher waistlines and lower hemlines, tweeds, fitted blazers and layers for the fall.
"The '50s sexy librarian look is in," this Seventeen editor told a Seattle Times reporter.
Huh? Come again.
To dispel my confusion, I made a quick trip to the stores I know girls my sons' ages like to frequent. (Nordstrom, by the way, is usually out of their price range.) But a walk among the racks revealed one sure thing: This Miss Modesty trend must have bypassed my corner of the globe. Less is still in vogue.
Granted, I live in the tropics, in a city known more for what it reveals than for what it covers up. Layering in Miami usually means a diaphanous blouse over a flimsy tank top. Nevertheless, because we're so fashion conscious, I figured such a trend would have made its way southward.
Not a chance. Miss Modesty hasn't made an appearance in local stores -- nor in most places I've looked, either.
Regardless of proclamations, pop-tart skimpiness is very much in. Which begs the questions: Who buys these clothes? Who dresses these girls? Who allows them out in such outfits? The answers make a telling statement about the values we want to pass on to the next generation of women.
There is nothing cute in dressing a 9-year-old à la Britney, and something infinitely sad about magazine editors who use "sexy" to describe young girls and with parents who push their children to look so grown up. For all its skinned knees and school cliques, childhood is an halcyon stage that should remain impervious to the coarseness of pop culture. Ella Gunderson knows that, and she's only 11. |
 Source: Miami Herald | |
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