In The Beauty Suit,
Lauren Shields describes a talk about hijab, the Muslim requirement to dress modestly, which she
heard as a student at her Candler Theological Seminary. Having seen Hasidic women in Brooklyn
dressed in long, loose clothes and headscarves and envying the freedom and comfort of their
attire, Shields suddenly felt inspired and began to think that she might feel freer if she were
to dress with similar modesty.
Shields then realized how much time, effort,
and money she spent living up to Western standards of beauty. It suddenly occurred to her that
she had been living a double-standarddismissing her grown-up suit of fashionable clothes and
make-up as merely a costume, not an essential part of her, while at the same time focusing so
much of her life on it.
The Modesty Experiment taught her that some people
had been heavily influenced by her appearance and that these people now ignored her. However,
those she really valued, including her fianc©, did not treat her any differently when she
changed her appearance. She now had more interesting conversations with these people about the
role of appearances in their lives.
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