Tuesday, April 22, 2008

But GD forbid you wear Denim!

While at ShopRite my sister and I were quickly going through the isles in search for something. In one of the isle's was a frummy lady, wearing what looked literally like a black shower robe (a tad fancier, like, you may wear it to the beach), and a pink turban, towel material head covering. She looked absolutely terrible. I personally try to look a bit decent before I leave the house, I'm not super obsessed, but I do try to look decent; and my sister cares only a drop less than I do about what she looks like, yet we came into an agreement that neither of us would EVER leave the house like that. NEVER, unless our house were (Gd forbid) burning and we had to throw something on, because we were completely undressed.

As we were walking, I said to my sister "But I bet you, this same lady would never wear denim because its not considered "kavodik" to wear in front of Hashem."

My sister was like "oh yea, you're so right."

When I see people in Boro Park or Boro Park type people in Shop Rite, I honestly think they look ridiculous (those long unbrushed beards and shtreimals in 90 degree heat scare me). But at least they're wearing OUTDOOR clothing. When you're wearing a robe and towely turban thing, you're just asking to be blogged about! In my opinion denim is waaaaaaay more kavodik.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Denim is assur because its exclusively goyish. It started out as working clothes for miners in the 19th century and is now everyday casual wear. Jews should only wear clothes that have a degree of respect attached to it.

(Not my opinion, I wear jeans. I'm just explaining the viewpoint.)

frumskeptic said...

I didn't know the history.

Though, I'll tell you, my parents, who are from the former Soviet Union say that overthere Jeans are considered really respectable. If you were able to afford Jeans, you wore them to weddings. Like, if it were not a communist country it would-no doubt- be acceptible for them to be worn to shul on shabos.

These things should go by society, b/c unless you're from the culture that considered it "working clothes for miners" then it may just have respect attatched to it.

I dunno...w/e...It just annoys me that a bath towel on the head and a really creepy robe is somehow more appropriate than Jeans. I wouldn't allow my worst enemy to leave her house the way that woman was dressed. It was awful. I think it even touched on the tznious issue considering one look at her you automatically thought of her in a shower...ewww!

s(b.) said...

Jeans are and continue to be as Jewish as clothing can get (not that pants can have a religion, but the company's actions, as detailed in the article linked below, speak for themselves):
http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/000728/jeans.shtml

frumskeptic said...

sara:

Interesting article, thank you for sharing :)

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

frumskeptic: I agree with you 100% on this one. It always makes me laugh to see those towely turbans. That is really true, at least denim is meant for outside.

Holy Hyrax said...

Ties are goyish too

JB said...

The mall, last night, after the movie was deserted and while the better half was in the ladies room from the corner of my eye I spotted some left over popcorn in the kiosk. Well I looked to the east and than looked to the west and saw nobody so I lunged for the yummy buttery morsels of popped corn and savored the chometz under my tongue Wow better than a first kiss!(concept originated by Rabbi Pinky)

Ookamikun said...

Since when is popcorn chometz?

Anonymous said...

Thats true, jeans were invented by Jews.

Yehudi Hilchati said...

I didn't know there were islands in the supermarket! :-P

"isle" means island - you meant "aisle".

Yehudi Hilchati said...

Let's be dan l'kav zchut - maybe she was in the middle of cooking for a huge crowd for yom tov and had very little time and had to run out to the supermarket to get some last minute ingredients and didn't have time to change.

frumskeptic said...

Yehudi:""isle" means island - you meant "aisle"."

Thank you ... lol...seriously!! I misuse words like that ALL the time, I usually catch it easily and fix it. This time I saw "isle" thoguht to myself "this doesnt look right" but couldnt figure out WHY it didn't look right...so i was like "w/e, I'll post it" And I completely forgot about it. Now I feel stupid. :)

---Nea, I dont like judging people favorably about what they wear. Simply because I usually don't pay attention to clothes very much anyway, considering i NOTICED that she was wearing such ugliness, makes me not care at all about how I judged her even.

ProfK said...

Sorry frumpunk but denim, the fabric, was not "invented" here in the States. It's name comes from the French city of Nimes, where it was first produced. It came in other colors besides the blue which is prevalent now. And it wasn't just for working people. Even the upper class took to the fabric when it first appeared, using it for heavy cloaks and bad weather apparel. One story tells of an aristocrat who lined the cloak made of denim with fur. It was Levy Strauss in California who took the material and made it into miner's clothing.

If it was good enough for an aristocrat, I have no problem with it at all.

Anonymous said...

profk: Notice I did say jeans and not denim.
Nowadays the best denim is from Japan anyways, so jeans are another thing Americas fallen behind on.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I did say denim in the first post. Dammit. My bad.