Lady Lydia speaks on .... Dressing Everyday ~ Part 2

Some school teachers say that high school girls they have seen have never been seen in dress and have never owned one. This is all the more reason why you should do everything in your power to bring your teen daughters home to study and plan to be homemakers, alongside their own mothers. Once at home, away from powerful peer influences, they can be exposed to movies like "Wives and Daughters," "Anne of Green Gable," "Persuasion," and other classical stories. As they learn from the past, these young women naturally will want to dress femininely. If you will study the Victorian photographs carefully, you will see that there was hardly any difference between the teen girls and the grown women. Little girls looked forward to growing up and putting their hair up and wearing longer dresses. They wanted to be respectable.

Lest you think that our teaching on feminine dress is "living in the past," let me assure you that although our values are pictured in the past, they are practiced in the present and focused on the future. All three eras work in harmony, as we glean the best in clothing styles from all the previous centuries we have a record of. Do not be discouraged if you have days of disorganization, illness, and interruptions and you can't dress quite as well as you would like. Just keep the picture in your mind of what you'd like to be. Do a little each day to increase your femininity. Find good teachers and mentors who will coach you in your quest to dress femininely. Look at catalogs, and circle the things you think are the most feminine. Write letters to those you feel could give you some help. The first step in real change is to have a strong desire. The next step is to change that desire into reality. Part of the Biblical way of life is to look for ways to do better. We do not have to continue to follow failure patterns. We have the opportunity to restore society to modesty and femininity, just by doing it ourselves. One person can influence many.

Along with the changes in the way you dress, you must expect a negative reaction. There is an element of society that does not want women to "go back" to real feminine dress. These people will cast discouraging remarks up to you. When you answer your door in the morning they will say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were going somewhere." Or, "I won't keep you long. It looks like you were ready to go out." Just say, "Oh, no. I dress like this every day."
While living overseas many years ago, I was introduced to another American woman whose husband was with a company that had transferred him to their office there. The wife invited me to go up to their apartment to visit her, at nine in the morning. When she greeted me, she was all dressed up; not in formal evening wear, mind you, but not in pants and a sweatshirt, as many women did. I asked her about it, and she said she wanted to always be ready if her husband called and said he was bringing someone home for lunch, of if he wanted to meet her somewhere.

In a magazine recently, a husband sent in pictures of his wife, to see if this particular magazine would do a makeover for her. He showed them pictures of the three young children and the wife in sweat pants, tee-shirt and slippers and the totally demolished living room in the morning. He told the staff that she was a beautiful woman, but he had not seen that beauty in a long time. He stated that the outfit in the pictures was the one she wore everyday at home. The makeover people dressed her in a dress and pulled her hair back out of her face. She said she felt alive because the clothing cheered her up. The "after" pictures showed her house looking much better. For some reason, dressing up gave more energy and optimism and creativity. Her baby had grown so used to her in her grungy day-to-day wear that when he first saw her made over, he refused to go to her because he did not know her.

No matter what your size or nationality or skin color or income, it is possible to dress femininely. Feminine dress transcends borders, language and culture.

The end!