Clothing

When government officials in the state of Georgia decided to streamline the licensing process by allowing drivers to upload their own photos, they didn’t anticipate the unintended consequences. But recently, they decided to be a bit more, er, explicit in their instructions.

A recent Facebook post from the Georgia Department of Driver Services read, “Attention, lovely people of the digital era. Please take pictures with your clothes on when submitting them for your Digital Driver’s License and IDs.”

Because social media is often a domain for memes and practical jokes, people questioned whether the need for such clarification was warranted, but officials insisted they had indeed received a significant number of photos where the subjects were in various stages of undress. “It’s real, and it’s insane,” read one official response.

Still, the people responded with jokes and asked for more instructions: One wrote, “How much clothing? I feel like y’all are asking a lot in a vague way.” Others said, “I have questions … Enough to raid the fridge at midnight? Enough for a trip to Walmart? Brooks Brothers’ suit?”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In our social media age people expose every detail of life for wide consumption, but that's not how God intended us to live. Some things should remain private.

Out of curiosity Ben Kirby started watching worship songs on YouTube and identified many of the leaders and preachers as wearing sneakers worth from $800 to $1200. Others wore designer outfits worth thousands. He started an Instagram account posting the preachers and the price tags. In the first month he had 100,000 followers.

In an interview for The Washington Post he questioned the blatant extravagance of someone preaching about Jesus: “I began asking, how much is too much? Is it okay to get rich off of preaching about Jesus? Is it okay to be making twice as much as the median income of your congregation?”

One report noted:

Practice what you preach. We expect our leaders—no matter who they are—to maintain certain standards of decency and to uphold the same values they profess to support. ... Kirby continues to show the dissonance between what preachers, pastors, and priests say and what the details of their clothing reveal about their actual lifestyles.

Just a few examples of what religious leaders have been photographed wearing:

• Gucci Slippers: $1,100

• Jordan 1 Retro High Dior Sneakers: $7,210

• Supreme X Louis V Jacquard Denim Parka: $9,625

• Christian Louboutin Belt Bag: $1,250

• Stefano Ricci Belt: $2,541

In their book Veneer , Timothy Willard and Jason Locy argue that contemporary American culture often values image or appearance over depth of character. They write, "Embarrassed by the scars of our humanity, we try to hide our brokenness. We use a veneer to cover ourselves, hoping others will perceive us as having greater worth, as being more beautiful and perfect than we feel inside." As a specific example of this "venner" or image we try to project to other people, they point to the history of a common article of clothing--blue jeans. They observe:

When Levi Strauss first introduced jeans to America, his sales pitch was simple: durable pants for working-class folks. Strauss didn't give much attention to fashion—jeans were a work garment for gold miner in the West. No one really cared what they looked like; they just needed to function.

But over time, things changed. A certain subculture of teens adopted jeans as a symbol of rebellion. They appeared in movies and magazines, worn by Kerouac, Dean, and Brando. They were worn less for their ability to handle a hard day's work and more as the anti-something.

Then, in 1980, a fifteen-year-old Brooke Shields slid on a pair of boots … [and] posed in a pair of Calvin Klein's. With the flash of a camera, designer jeans became a must-have for women.

When Calvin Klein ran his first of many controversial ads, he didn't pay attention to how his jeans held up in the fields; he just cared about how they looked. He understood that people were looking for ways to express themselves, and that if an identity statement could be made with his jeans, more people would buy them. Today, we seldom buy jeans for their durability; we buy them to tell the world something about us. We are a beatnik poet, a rebel without a cause, the girl wanting to impress the boy; our choice of jeans, the cut and color and brand, speaks the language of culture without saying a word …. Whether it is Levis or Diesel, McCafe or Starbucks, Mercedes or Chevy, Nike or Converse, every consumptive choice makes a statement.

In a joint interview, supermodels Kim Alexis, Carol Alt, and Beverly Johnson—who collectively have appeared on more than 2,000 magazine covers—spoke frankly about the stresses and health problems of struggling to stay at the peak in the beauty business.

Alexis, who is five-feet-ten-inches tall, admits that after being discovered by a talent scout, the owner of New York City's Elite modeling agency guaranteed her a certain amount of money if she lost 15 pounds. At the time, she weighed 145 pounds. "I cried for the first year of my career," Alexis confesses honestly. "I remember trying every fad diet. I remember starving myself for four days in a row. I remember trying the Atkins diet, which was low carbohydrate, high protein. If I didn't drop 10 pounds in a week, I was on another diet."

Carol Alt also dieted and exercised strenuously to force her five-foot-eight-inch frame down to an unnaturally slender 115 pounds. On her first modeling job, she passed out and fell into fellow model Kelly Emberg's arms. "An editor had given me a month to lose 12 pounds," Alt explains. "If I did, she promised me a trip to Rome. So I stopped eating."

As a highly paid fashion model and cover girl, Beverly Johnson frequently found herself doing exactly the same thing. "I ate nothing. I mean nothing," she says. "From the moment I took my first picture, I thought it would be my last, and from the moment I started modeling at 17 years old, I thought that the next 16-year-old girl who came in would be better than me." Eventually ending up with bulimia, anorexia, and a thyroid problem, Beverly attributes her ailments to self-imposed starvation and crash dieting. "In our profession, clothes look better on a hanger, so you have to look like a hanger."

Kim Alexis was one of the first American supermodels in the 1980s. She was on over 500 magazine covers, including Vogue and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Then on January 21, 1990, Alexis asked Jesus to take control of her life. Now she counsels women to avoid some of her mistakes.

She says, "Many women are playing with fire in the way they dress. Dressing like a floozy tells the world, 'Look at me, want me, lust after me. I'm easy and you can have me.' Displaying intimate parts of the body is a form of advertising for sex."

"Dressing modestly tells the world, 'I respect myself and I insist on being treated with respect." Alexis says, "It is possible to be stylish and attractive without wearing something that is too short, low-cut, or see-through."

A woman whose smile is open and whose expression is glad has a kind of beauty no matter what she wears.