Here it is! The promised post of how I ultimately came to the realization that faith + fashion CAN happily coexist! These were some of the things I considered crucial knowledge that I had to know before fully committing myself to the fashion industry. I told myself that if I wanted to begin pursuing this passion of mine, I had to be able to articulate how my faith plays a role in it. Then and only then would I be able to keep myself grounded and stay true to the values I considered important.
As I’ve mentioned before, I initially didn’t feel comfortable involving myself in fashion because I couldn’t reconcile the values I held as a Christian with the values that I perceived were held by the fashion industry. Over the course of a few months, I set out to research all the ways faith and fashion could coexist, aka how I could possibly enjoy fashion while still living + loving like Christ. I consulted the world wide web, books, other Christian fashion bloggers, and close friends to compile a list of justifications.
There were def lots and lots and lots and lots of little things along the way that contributed to the gradually increasing peace I felt towards being in fashion, but these were just some of the ones that stuck out to me the most.
God appreciates beauty, after all, He created this world and everything in it.
Go outside and take a look around you. The trees, the flowers, the birds, the ADORABLE SQUIRRELS!!! Everything was handcrafted by our God, designed to perfection. Y’know, He honestly could’ve made everything gray and bland. But He CHOSE to make things beautiful. He took the time to add elements of beauty to creation. That’s why we have flowers of all colors and all patterns, that’s why we have some of the most beautiful and most intricate creatures in this world (ahem squirrels). If we have a God who delights in beauty, why shouldn’t we?
Not everything has to be all about practicality when it comes to God.
I think for us as Christians, we tend to view things like fashion as “extra” and “luxurious.” Because they’re not things that we “need,” we think it is vanity to go in pursuit of them. And that’s true, to a certain extent. But I think that by claiming that, we’re actually portraying a false image of God. Sometimes I think that we get so caught up in the authority of God, that we actually make Him out to be a lot stricter and uptight than He actually is. But He’s actually a pretty fun God if you think about it! God’s not just about practicality, He’s also about beauty and how that can be an act of worship. Just take a look at the story in Matthew 26 about the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with some pretty pricey perfume that was stored in an alabaster jar. Whereas the disciples rebuked the woman for “wasting” such a luxurious item on something so “impractical,” Jesus praised her and called her act an act of worship. And look! She even got a place in the Bible!! Likewise, although it makes sense why fashion can be seen as “extra,” I think there’s another dimension to it that can actually be a part of the way we worship God.
Beauty can combat evil.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but after every mass tragedy, people tend to respond with acts of beauty. Let’s take 9/11 as an example. After that fateful day, so many people began to create in response to the tragedy. There were drawings, paintings, photo tributes, you name it! In the face of the evil that had just occurred, beauty played a huge role in the healing process. By creating beautiful things, people were essentially saying that they wouldn’t let evil tear them down, that they could still find beauty in the midst of so much ugly. In my eyes, it’s actually a way of responding to evil with love. I know fashion isn’t exactly the same as what happened with 9/11, but the idea is the same. Beauty isn’t always for the superficial.
Fashion can speak volumes, and that can be pretty powerful when used to glorify God.
Fashion. Is. Communication. It’s nonverbal communication, to be exact. What you consciously choose to put on your body actually says a lot about your character and your values, whether you know it or not. As Christians, it’s really important that we show God through our actions, in addition to verbally proclaiming His name ofc. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean having phrases like “PRAISE THE LORD” plastered all over your clothing (I mean, if you wanna, more power to you), but rather, it’s the way you present yourself in your clothing. Does your outfit say: “I don’t care about anything life sux it’s hopeless bah humbug blah blah blah” or does it say “I am a BEAUTIFUL child of God and I am CONFIDENT in His grace and redeeming love!!!!” Y’see what I mean. Ofc you have to be aware that there is a line between displaying your confidence in God through your clothing vs. finding ALL your confidence from your clothing. Some other things I try to think about are modesty and more recently, sustainability, both of which I’ll talk about a lil later when I’m more confident of my own stance on them. But yes, those can play a part in displaying who God is.
Jesus is the ultimate picture of a “contradiction.”
This reasoning was gifted to me by a very good + wise friend of mine and it was perhaps, the missing piece I needed in order to fully devote myself to pursuing fashion. I remember when he told me this, I was M I N D B L O W N. Like wut. All my life, I had thought that anything that seemed to contradict the values of Christianity was B-A-D BAD!! But what I didn’t realize was that Jesus himself is the embodiment of a contradiction!! He is both fully man and fully God, displaying human brokenness, yet at the same time, a picture of God’s holiness. Two things that seem like they cannot coexist. But Jesus made that possible. So who’s to say that the same can’t be said of faith + fashion??
Fashion is an “unreached” people group.
As a Christian, when I hear the word “unreached,” I often think of underdeveloped countries. Countries that are hard for us to physically go to and share the love of God. However, it doesn’t have to just pertain to other countries. There are unreached people right here in America! And that was something I didn’t realize until someone told me that in a sense, fashion is an unreached industry because not many Christians dare to step foot in it, probably due to the same reasons I was so hesitant to. For me, that was a game-changer and such a convicting moment because I realized that by obeying my fears about the “conflicting” values of faith + fashion, I was essentially saying that fashion people didn’t deserve God’s love. I was robbing them of the greatest gift that God has given ALL of humankind. Now, I’m not saying that I entered fashion with the sole motive of converting people. NO! THAT IS INCORRECT! What I AM saying, is that as a Christian, I shouldn’t shy away from something that seems “out of the Christian comfort zone.” That is the wrong attitude to have and it totally sends a wrong image of who God is, a God who loves ERRBODY!!
In addition to these 6 realizations, I’ve also come to see that there are so many values in fashion that are good + meaningful. Perhaps even, there are more similarities than differences between faith + fashion, but I’m still investigating that one. I’m so grateful that God has given me this passion, because it’s def challenged a lot of my ideas of what love looks like. God truly delights in what we delight in and there’s a good reason for that: it’s so we’re given a chance to be faithful witnesses to His love through doing the very things we love!! And how cool is that!!!!
~jo