Dress And Appearance

Dress and Appearance

In Mormon beliefs, the body is sacred, and so are you.  How you dress should reflect the respect that the Lord has for you and that you have for yourself.

Mormon prophets have always stressed that what we wear should be modest—slanting always closer to decency than exposure.  The world is more and more interested in exposure.  Fashions get increasingly extreme, models and celebrities often wear as little as possible—especially women.  Why buy into this?  If you’re female, there’s not much liberation in being as much of a “body” as you can be.  That’s the message that that media would have you take away from it.  Look, this is what men like, so it’s what you should wear.  Women stand as equal citizens.  Why reduce yourself to this?

Society might put less pressure on young men to reveal themselves, but the same things apply.  Your body is holy, but you are more than a body.  You don’t want to use your body as an attention-getting device and you don’t want yourself to be seen mostly in a physical way.
The Church has been pretty clear and specific on what kind of clothes are appropriate and which aren’t.  Avoid shorts and skirts which have been cut short.  (Because Mormons hope to eventually wear temple garments, “close to the knee” is a good benchmark.)  Wear shirts that cover the shoulder and young women should be careful of shirts cut too low in front or in back (men as well, but this seems to be somewhat less common in their clothing.)

Tattoos and body piercing should be avoided, as these disfigure the body (sometimes permanently).  Young women can wear one modest set of earrings (but no more than one).

Beyond this, it’s always good to strive for good manners and a neat appearance.  I know (oh don’t I) that even giving my hair a run-through before I go out for the day sometimes feels like too much.
But modesty doesn’t extend to slouching and neglecting to bathe or groom.  We should strive to make other people comfortable around us, while putting our best self forward, so to speak.  It doesn’t show much respect for others when we neglect manners or how we present ourselves—it also doesn’t show much respect for ourselves.  We can lose opportunities we might otherwise have had if we look or act like slobs.

Hair should thus be clean and not too extreme.  A green mohawk might sound like great fun in the short term, but think of how much it’ll cost to maintain—or, rather, not many people are going to take you seriously if that’s what you’re sporting.

The line between “being yourself” and “being acceptable” might seem drawn too far from one side or the other sometimes.  But remember that you can express yourself in very unique ways without running to extremes.  Members of the Mormon religion don’t dress alike.  I suspect that the way I dress wouldn’t be the way that many others dress (what? Hawaiian shirts and black skirts aren’t the style?), but it’s not unacceptable, it exposes nothing, and it doesn’t offend anyone.  (To my knowledge, anyway.  Fashion isn’t my strong point.)