Bad Habits: Making a Tier List for Religious Clothing

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they explore and rank religious clothing from various faiths around the world. In this engaging discussion, they analyze the practical, cultural, and spiritual aspects of religious garments, from Mormon temple garments to Sikh turbans. The couple offers unique insights into how religious clothing impacts adherents' daily lives, community cohesion, and interactions with the broader society.

This comprehensive review covers:

* The practicality and symbolism of various religious garments

* How clothing reinforces religious identity and commitment

* The balance between tradition and modernity in religious dress

* The role of gender in religious clothing mandates

* The economic impact of religious clothing within communities

* The effectiveness of religious clothing in preserving cultural identity

Whether you're interested in comparative religion, fashion history, or cultural anthropology, this video provides a fascinating look at the intersection of faith and clothing across different religious traditions.

Speaker 3: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone!

I am excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing various types of religious clothing and various rules around religious clothing. And we are going to be ranking them from a utility and fashion. And when I say utility, I don't just mean in their daily, you know, whatever, but in terms of how they frame people of that religion to outsiders, how they keep people in religions, how they push people out of religions.

And discuss more our own sort of beliefs around, you know, religious fashion and stuff like that and what I think, you know, makes sense to mandate, not mandate. And that's where we got the title for the episode, Bad Habits. Because I wanted to make a habit joke, which is a name for one of the Catholic,

Speaker 4: necessary. Yeah. And that's clothing. But I think more importantly. When people look at religious clothing, they often think that's weird or that doesn't look good or whatever. And, and we're not judging this. I mean, we may have comments about the aesthetics, but the most important thing about religious clothing is its function, [00:01:00] and sometimes the function is literally logistical.

It's protective, it's practical, it's durable. Often it, it has a much more Important framing and symbolic function. And so we want to look at that and how, see how effective it is or not. Malcolm and I are going to have plenty of disagreements, I'm sure.

Speaker 3: That's an easy one to start with because you know, you used to live with Mormons, you know a lot about them.

Speaker 4: Right. Mormons are most famous for their garments. These are underwear. They're church sanctioned. They have special, like, patterns on them that are important. But the most important thing is that they are basically shorts and shirts.

That Sort of require you to wear modest clothing because if you don't, they will show. So I'll

Speaker 3: word this a bit differently because I think that you're sort of beating around the bush. They are like an undershirt and underpants. They have special symbols on them and lines on them.

That represent specific religious things to Mormons.

You have to wear them all the time, except when you are swimming [00:02:00] or exercising, which creates a An interesting positive externality for the Mormon community, because everyone, especially women who want to dress more centrally for mainstream society, have a sort of a very strong reason outside of just the exercise itself to exercise regularly, because it's an excuse to not wear your garments.

I would note that this actually makes garments. Fairly loosey goosey from the perspective of most religious wear. So if you contrast garments with something like a Kirpan, you'd be the knife that Sikhs have to carry. Sikhs are not allowed to even take it off in the shower. You know, all the time.

All the time. Yeah, these are very durable

Speaker 4: knives. Like if you want to get a good knife, you should get that kind of knife because you can shower with it. You can wear it everywhere.

Speaker 3: So, yeah. So the cure pants. Yeah. So, so, The Mormons, on the other hand you know, they, they, they're actually pretty because people [00:03:00] always compare their religious fashion with the urban monoculture, where whatever you want, whenever you want.

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Instead of with other religious fashion. When they're trying to decide how strict it is one of the more annoying things about garments is the ways that you have to dispose of them. You, I believe, used to need to send them to like a garment disposal facility because they're considered sacred in a way, right?

Like you can't just cut. You

Speaker 4: only wear and you, you don't wear them as a child. You wear them after you are endowed, like sort of after you go through a very special secret initiation ceremony with the church as a young adult that is a major act of commitment. Yeah. So.

Speaker 3: I was just going to say, because I hadn't finished my last point, the way that you dispose of garments has changed recently.

Where now it is actually much easier to dispose of them and you can cut them apart in a certain way. And there's only certain parts of it that needs to be disposed of super carefully and the rest can be burned. But anyway, you were saying Simone,

Speaker 4: you, you only wear garments after you get endowed which is a sort of very, very secret, [00:04:00] important commitment ceremony that young adults go through.

You have to be endowed. For example, to enter the temple and attend a wedding ceremony, including your own. So it's, it is related to ceremonies and I like personally, I think garments are awesome because a big part of the Mormon church is going out and trying to convert people and it's hard to. I, I think build rapport with people and build a lot of commonality with outsiders if you're dressed super strange but garments are a way for you to be approachable and seem normal while still everyday reminding yourself that Self that you're very committed to your religion.

'cause wearing special underwear does remind you of that. Yeah. That

Speaker 3: is worth elevating what you just said, which is a unique aspect of Mormon religious clothing is that it is something that has a few unique functions when contrast with other religious clothing. It allows Mormons to quickly identify other Mormon.

But people who aren't Mormons, or aren't very familiar [00:05:00] with Mormons, may not notice that the person is wearing religious clothing. Yeah, that's a

Speaker 4: really interesting, as you typically can tell someone is wearing garments, or likely wearing garments if you know what to look for. Which is cool. It's like

Speaker 3: a secret handshake.

But it also means that you're not as othered from mainstream society as you would be within other religious communities, which you would see as a

Speaker 4: strict to downside.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I see that as a downside because it causes you to look less like, I think there are ways that you can build religious codes that allow you to interact with mainstream society, but still other yourself.

A great example would be the conservative Jew

The, the yarmulke thing that conservative Jews wear where they can wear a suit but you still immediately know they're Jewish and they know when they're walking into a room and everyone else knows they're Jewish.

So they're not breaking mainstream societal dress codes. But they do look different. Whereas with Mormons, it's much more covert. Which It has some upsides and downsides. You're right about that. [00:06:00] Now, I'd ask you, what are your thoughts on the women's dress in the more extreme warmest movement?

What's it called? Yeah.

Speaker 4: So if you think of FLDS clothing, we're talking those weird pastel dresses with somewhat puffy Sleeves that go like very long sleeves and they're just extremely unflattering dresses. I personally hate them I think they look terrible. They certainly don't attract me to the mormon church at all

Speaker 3: No, I I agree and I do not think they look bad Pious either they this is the problem.

If you can trust them, we'll go over the Bruderhof in a second. Right. Or the Amish, which have somewhat similar outfits with what the women in those communities where, when I look at women in those communities, it gives me this sense of piousness. But when I look at women in this style of dress that we're going to have on screen here

the.

The extremist Mormons wear. To me, it just looks like a frumpy status symbol sort of thing. Well, and they

Speaker 4: also don't look practical in terms of, you know, a woman who should be looking after quite a few [00:07:00] children. Right. They, they look like they, Might be kind of difficult to move around in that they're more fabric to clean.

It just doesn't nothing there makes sense to me.

Speaker 3: Yeah and I and I think that They would they might drive people away from the Mormon Church More than other things because they are other ring in a way that So this is an important thing about religious clothing. Are they othering in a way that sort of calls you out as above other people?

Or are they othering in a way that calls you out as below other people? And I feel like this outfit seems to be othering in a way that stations these people as looking below other people in a way. Whereas an example of othering in a way that makes you look above other people Catholics are great with this in terms of their religious wear.

It's very much like you see, especially like a Catholic, you know,

priest or somebody in you know, some of the, the other things that they have, like the cinturas and the albs and, and it looks very like, okay, this [00:08:00] is somebody who's got some sort of like a special status.

Speaker 4: Yeah, well, and there's, I think there's a reason why so many sci fi costumes appear to be inspired by Catholic clothing.

It is distinct, it is other, it is dune, you know? Yeah,

Speaker 3: yeah. Well, and some of the righty Jewish groups, I think, do a pretty good job with this. Agreed, yes. But we'll get to those. Yeah, we'll get to those in a second. Alright, so, what is your final take on Mormon clothing before we go to the next one?

Speaker 4: If I was going to grade them an A, B, C, D, F, I would put them in a solid B pretty good, but not exceptional.

Speaker 3: Yeah I would say one theological thing I like about their clothing is that they don't do a lot of crosses. I've always found crosses to be rather ghoulish. I mean, it's, it's, it's like literally a torture device that, you know, killed the son of God, right?

You know, I His worst

Speaker 4: moment, yeah. I mean, like, if, if I had a life that people were remembering, [00:09:00] would I want them to remember me by? The worst day of my life or

Speaker: maybe something else.

Speaker 4: Maybe that time I healed a blind kid. I don't

Speaker 3: know. Yeah. We couldn't be anything else. So let's now go to the Amish. Tell me what you think of the Amish

Speaker 4: yeah I love Amish clothing. I think that it is tasteful. I think that it is practical. It is clearly clothing that is made for work. It's also very distinctive. I like women's prayer bonnets. I think that of the, the world of bonnets, they're tasteful, pretty structured. They're not practical from a sun protection standpoint, but I guess I'm not going to complain too much about that because the straw men that the wear the men, sorry, the straw hats that the men wear are very fetching and better for some protection and probably women are doing more indoor work anyway.

So I am a fan. I love it. I think that they use a lot of natural fibers, a huge fan of natural fibers. And I. I know these clothes can take a beating. I, we, we see them as we drive through Lancaster. We [00:10:00] set

Speaker 3: up in our area. There's lots of Amish. So they set up around where we are. And you can see the

Speaker 4: clothes drying in the wind on large clothes lines, and they're just great.

Speaker 3: I think they are great in a number of perspectives. I think that so one, we've got to talk about like the actual prohibitions here, they're there. They can't use things like buttons. They can't use things like that to them was a modern, there's no buttons. Oh, yeah. Buttons are considered too high tech for them, like garish.

Speaker 4: Ooh,

Speaker 3: la la. How do they fasten

Speaker 4: their

Speaker 3: clothing? There's two little fastener types that were common pre buttons. And I mean, keep in mind, buttons are a fairly new technology. You know, we just forget about this, right? You know. But obviously they're not going to use zippers. They're not going to use Velcro.

They're not going to use, but so they have a lot of strict rules around these specific types of technology that they can engage with within their clothing, which may make their closing like unusually difficult in some ways. But the end [00:11:00] effect when you see an Amish individual. Very interestingly is one, especially Amish women come across is very approachable, more approachable than other religious traditions I've seen.

And Amish men do as well, actually.

Speaker 4: I don't feel that way. I feel uniquely nervous about approaching them. I don't think I've ever walked up to an Amish woman. Shattered with an Amish person.

Speaker 3: Oh, I always feel like it would

Speaker 4: be disrespectful somehow.

Speaker 3: They, their outfits to me, engender a sense of piousness and a sense of humility without belittling them or making them look lesser than other people

Speaker 4: they certainly don't look lesser, they look very competent and put together in their clothing.

But when I see people dress that differently from society, even when they're mixing with society, and we typically see Amish people, when we are at like in a place where we can interact with them at farmer's markets or going to one of their shops, I get this feeling like we dress different differently and we look differently because we [00:12:00] don't want to mix and interact with you.

We are trying to be separate. from your society. I don't want to talk with you.

Speaker 3: I

Speaker 4: mean, it's a good thing, but it's not approachable. I don't know where you're getting approachable from this. It doesn't feel at all.

Speaker 3: And I feel like all

Speaker 4: religious othering Clothing is kind of meant to make people less approachable.

To, to, sorry, I, I should

Speaker 3: be clear. I mean, transactionally approachable. So the people who don't live around the Amish don't realize most of the time you're interacting with Amish just because you're doing business with them.

Mm-Hmm. . So they're very common. The women will run fruit stalls, they'll run stuff like that,

Speaker 4: baked goods.

Amazing. And, and I,

Speaker 3: I guess part of, to me, what makes it feel approachable is I know. They're never going to try to small talk me. They're never going to try to like sell me up on their products. That's true. Never gonna hustle me or try and pressure. Okay. So they come

Speaker 4: across as trustworthy, not approachable.

Speaker 3: Well, for me, it's not just trustworthy. It's that I know that they have no interest in talking my ear off about something, I guess [00:13:00] for me, typically approachable,

Speaker 4: someone is up for small talk.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay. So I guess I mean, you drive me nuts with word choice. Because that's, that's where I see them. I see them at stalls and I'm always, I would always go to an Amish stall over another stall for sure.

Well, and you feel the same way then. So clearly it's achieving that end, but it's going to prevent them. I mean, in terms of interaction with mainstream society, this is where it really struggles. If you dressed this differently, you could not easily integrate with companies or move up in the workplace or

Speaker 4: I disagree because I think Muslim dress is also pretty extreme at times and it does not stop people at all.

Speaker 3: Okay. Okay. I'll buy that. So I prefer the, and I think the othering nature of it doesn't look ridiculous to me. I'd also note that. I think

Speaker 4: it looks very tasteful and good.

Speaker 3: Yeah when I say ridiculous, if people are wondering what I'm talking about here when we get to some of the Haredi Jewish stuff some of their outfits especially the male ones are just like, Are they like peacocking?

Like, is this like religious peacocking [00:14:00] here? Where it's just like a bit much, it's a bit much for everyday wear. All right. So, I want to talk about a few of the other groups here that are related to the Amish. Have you looked at Hutterite clothing before Simone? This is another Anabaptist group or Latin American Mennonite clothing.

Speaker 4: Latin American Mennonite.

Speaker 3: So, Latin American Mennonites will wear very bright colors. So they otherwise wear this very traditional yeah, you're going to need to be doing a lot of Googling on this episode to see what these look like. Oh, they're so cute. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4: Latin American Mennonites are great.

They're not always,

Speaker 3: They're not always colorful, but they're much more likely to be colorful because they don't have prohibitions against colors that some of the Amish do in our area. And then the Hutterites use a lot of patterns, if you look up the Hutterites, Hutterite clothing.

Speaker 4: One thing I'm noticing among Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, is a lot of family matching, which I really like. It really makes them seem united and together. [00:15:00] Yeah, Hutterites, I don't like as much

Speaker 3: because I think that it's too normal looking.

Speaker 4: Yeah, and more, I don't, this sounds bad, but it more just looks like People trying to be trad, but they have bad taste.

Speaker 3: Exactly. That's exactly what Hutterite clothing looks like. So Hutterite, I put it like the bottom tier of Amish clothing. And then I put the, the colorful Mennonites in the Amish in the same category.

Speaker 4: Getting back to function and not just why things look good. One of the reasons why I'm not big on Hutterite clothing is there are a lot of very different patterns.

And I think one of the big reasons why this works, why, in this more traditional way works is it keeps you with very simple fabrics and very simple patterns, and it gets you focused on your devotion and not fashion. And it's clear to me that women and choosing all these really weird, bright patterns, especially.

You know, not just solid colors is they're going for signaling. They're [00:16:00] showing that they're different. They're getting obsessed with clothes. They have a varied wardrobe and the more your time goes mentally to picking out different colors in your wardrobe or making a new dress and getting a new pattern.

I think the less your, your time goes to what matters to you most. It goes back to that whole president Obama deciding to only wear blue suits thing. I

Speaker 3: really agree with that. I really agree with that. I think any outfit that allows for too much variation is a real negative thing in religious dress.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

So worse is, is, is how to write.

Speaker 3: Sorry guys. Love you guys. So now to the next group that I don't think you know much about, which is the bruderhof.

Speaker 4: Yeah. So I looked at, at

Speaker 3: the, some ish for a tier. Would you put Amish at a tier for floating a tier?

Speaker 4: 100%. Yeah. A tier Amish love, absolutely fantastic.

Mennonites? I would put it a minus. I think Mennonites are, well, you No, no, no, no. And I would put Mennonites at a as well because in some cases, Mennonites, the way that they vary and or are more [00:17:00] flexible from pure Amish clothing. Is more out of a choice for practicality. Like sometimes Amish clothing is so true to the original Amish choice that it is impractical.

And it is actually distracting to try to go all the way to fit that rule. When really, I feel like from a consequentialist standpoint, in terms of really focusing on the spirit of the rule. Yeah. Mennonites have it more nailed. So both Amish and Mennonites get an A.

When it comes to the Hutterites, I would put them at C.

Hutterites, I'd put them at

C

Speaker 3: or D. C.

Speaker 4: C minus D. Yeah. Okay. I'd

Speaker 3: say D actually, just because I think it's so, ugly looking. Yeah. Actually,

Speaker 4: yeah. D. D. Yeah. Mm.

Speaker 3: So next, well, it just looks undisciplined when contrasted with the other ones. Yeah. So

Speaker 4: Bruderhof. Bruderhof.

Speaker 3: So people who don't know who the Bruderhof is, the Bruderhof are another Anabaptist group.

So they're related to, if you don't know who the Anabaptists are, that's the community that makes up the Amish, the Mennonites, the Hutterites and the Bruderhof. But the Bruderhof are not anti [00:18:00] technology like the other ones are. They are, however Um, and they live in communist communes. They don't believe in like full communism for everyone.

They just believe in that we are commanded to live, you know, as one with our neighbors. So sometimes they'll have quite large communes. Other times a commune will just be a couple of families living in the same house and like a major city. But to be a Bruderhof, you have to live in what's called a Bruderhof, which is one of these communes.

Now that means that you get your clothing for free but it also means that everyone's wearing the same clothing,

Speaker 4: but not really because they have lots of different color patterns and the clothing just looks awful. It looks like. You went to the Goodwill and you got the worst looking dresses and shirts and pants possible.

It didn't look mainstream, you know, that didn't have like a Nike logo on it or something. And then you wore that. And I do not like it. It

Speaker 3: was going to be inexpensive to produce and very, very durable. And so it's not, the [00:19:00] only religious mandate they have in terms of their clothing is that women have to cover their heads.

Which a lot of the Judeo It looks

Speaker 4: like women also need to dress modestly. Because we're seeing very long skirts.

Speaker 3: Oh yeah, long skirts. Well, yeah, they do not sexualize women at all. And men, this is one of those communities where we talked about in our other video of do men need to be more oppressed. This is one of those communities where men sort of look like women.

quote unquote, normal Western dress. Typically they're almost always wearing jeans and a button down shirt. Whereas women will be wearing very long skirts and head coverings, which can make them look a little, well, Amishi sort of your take on this. You actually don't like this one is

Speaker 4: not a fan at all.

Do not like,

I would put it at a D. It doesn't say anything to me. I think another thing about religious wear is ideally there's something kind of aspirational about it. And we can get more into this with Catholicism, for example.

Speaker 3: Yeah. We'll go to Catholic.

Speaker 4: But this does, there's nothing about this.

Like when I look at the Amish, I think [00:20:00] you guys look amazing. Your family looks beautiful. You look really put together. Even Mormons, like sort of normatively, they try to dress neater and nicer than the average American. You know, they seem more aspirational. Yeah, these guys are just like, man, you don't look good.

It's at FLDS level. In fact, if I had to choose, I would choose FLDS clothing.

Speaker 3: Oh, where would you mark FLDS, by the way? Put it at a D as well? C minus. C minus. It is

Speaker 4: very distinctive. Yeah. You could own it. You know? Like, if you blue off

Speaker 3: as well is it's not as distinctive.

Speaker 4: Yeah. It's, it's, it's just, it's just unfortunate looking.

It would make me, you don't want to wake up every day and feel frumpy and kind of crappy. It's one thing to be, here's the thing, like, so nuns, for example, like Catholic nuns, they, they are being, you know, they're covering up huge portions of their body. Women in, in burkas cover [00:21:00] huge portions of their bodies, but they can still feel absolutely fabulous.

I don't think there's any way that you could feel fabulous wearing burkas. I don't mean fabulous like look at me materialism. I mean like I am a tool of God to do good in this world kind of fabulous empowered empowered

Speaker 3: feel like an empowered like weapon of God. Yeah,

Speaker 4: clothing should make you feel empowered.

It should be the armor and the tool that enables you to be what you need to be

Speaker 3: because I agree that Catholics. Absolutely do this was their clothing. And I mean, so I think that the biggest negative that we'll get into is Catholic clothing is when I look at it, it immediately to me looks haughty and very like high society and very, like, you are the elite. With, I don't think that this is as much a problem for Catholics as it would be for another denomination because they already kind of own all of those stereotypes was in the religion. Like, they're not signaling something dishonestly about the [00:22:00] religion. It is kind of a haughty religion.

Speaker 4: Yeah, it's about hierarchy.

There's a very large organization and being higher. And that organization both needs to be very heavily signaled and also reflects a lot of prestige. So yes, you need to signal that.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Is the people who find the Catholic closing desirable are also the type of people who, when they engage with the theology of Catholicism and the hierarchy of Catholicism, Are going to be more likely to convert.

So it serves its purpose incredibly well, even if to me, it personally comes off as a bit of a turnoff. Very similar to the Amish. I think the Amish closing did a very good job of signaling what the Amish are all about, right? This humility, this lack of technology, everything like that now. If we want to talk about just some, some stuff here, you've got like your albs, which can be worn by laymen and then you've got the down, which signal like holiness with this cinctures.

Well, I mean,

Speaker 4: most classic is the, is the cassock with the white collar.

Speaker 3: Oh, I love that. I [00:23:00] always wish it could look

Speaker 4: very bad ass.

Speaker 3: Oh, it does. Yeah. It's very

Speaker 4: authoritarian. It's simple. It's classy. Yeah. I think it's great. I think it's powerful. I love it as, as a. Something that is it is approachable.

Like it doesn't look scary. Like some, some Catholic religious wear looks scary. Like, well, back off, like stay away from this person.

Speaker 3: It's like too much for me. Yeah. Like when I look at the Bishop stuff, like it, it kind of actually looks like they might be going to a satanic ritual sometimes with all the red and all the, you know, it does, it does get

Speaker: a little satanic,

Speaker 3: but.

Microphone (2- ATR2100x-USB Microphone): I think if you've grown up with a religion, it can be hard to see the way something might come across to an outsider. So. Eve you grew up with the Catholic tradition. I would ask you to take a step back. Try not to draw from your own memories and associations with an image like this. And then as somebody who had never seen a scene like this before. Trying to guess in a movie. If you saw this, would you assume that this was supposed to be a Christian ritual or a [00:24:00] satanic ritual and keep in mind the cues you have to go off of.

Everyone's wearing red. They're wearing golden. Ropes around their neck that looked like. Well, it looks like a hangman's rope around all of their necks, like their sacrifices. And the room is filled with gold and jewels and other fancy things like marble.

Speaker 3: But when you go to the level of the priest, I think that is maybe the, the best looking of all religious outfits I have seen in the world by a margin. And then it gets even cooler if you're putting one of those characters in a movie and you put like the typical Catholic priest and you give them like a shotgun or something for fighting vampires or you know, a crucifix in one hand and you know, a baseball.

But all of a sudden, They just come off as ultra, ultra, ultra bad ass, just unironically in the coolest way. Very badass. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4: I also really like if we're talking about [00:25:00] nuns and, you know, women's religious where, if they are like a full, full time careerist church person, I like habits and I like A lot of the different orders habits.

And these are the veils that nuns wear. So there, there are very cloistered nuns, nuns who do not interact with the world. Like a family friend of ours became a Carmelite nun. This is a very cloistered order. And I only ever spoke with her, interacted with her through a great, like, and if we sent her like a Christmas card or a letter, she would have to send it back to us.

She couldn't keep it. That's how close to there. And then they had like the full out, very, you know, elaborate, beautiful, heavy black habit. But then you said, I'm seeing, I'm sure nuns on the street, like wearing more light blue habits and just kind of out and easier to wear dresses and stuff. And I like those too.

I think they all look good. They, they also look like they stay on very snugly. They don't look like they fall off all the time. They are protective of the sun. They, [00:26:00] they, they stay on well, and they're very distinctive. I, I think it's a great religious garman.

Speaker 3: No, I absolutely agree on that. But also the related lay person version of that, you know, we were reading an article recently about the and the free

Speaker 4: press.

Yeah.

Speaker 3: And one of the, the, the girls was like, I saw people wearing veils. And she's like, how do I qualify for this? Like, what's,

Speaker 4: yeah. That basically there's this new trend of, of. Women, especially young women, starting to wear veils to Catholic mass, just lace veils, as it sort of was traditional among some churchgoers in the past.

And now more young women are doing it. As a often first, they're doing it honestly because they see some Catholic influencer do it on Instagram and they, they see it and it looks like a sign of prestige and I know exactly that feeling when you see someone wearing something in a context and think like, well, how do I qualify to get that?

You know, like seeing a girl scout with a certain badge and being like, how do I get that? Like, what do I have to do to get this?

Speaker 3: [00:27:00] Keep in mind within Catholicism, it makes extra sense to think that because a lot of the Catholic is earned. are earned. So if a woman see the woman and of course they're going to think, Oh, what, what status did he have that I don't have yet.

And that's something does very well as all the levels that you can earn. Yeah,

Speaker 4: it's very gamified and I love it too. But yeah, now more and more young ladies are wearing these lace veils to church and often first it starts out As a, an interest in status or an interest in the fashion, they just look pretty and then it starts to become an act of devotion is as they put on that garment as they prepare themselves for mass through that wearing that special distinctive clothing that isn't just a nice dress or whatever.

It's actually a, you know, sort of religious. specific garment. It makes them feel more devoted. I think that happens a lot also with the various types of veiling that Muslim women wear is it reminds them of their devotion. And I think that's a really important [00:28:00] part of the function of religious garments is that you may, ideally you start wearing it because you want to, and maybe it's for the wrong reasons, because it looks cool, but then It makes you think and lean in, think about and lean into your religion and become more like,

Speaker 3: yeah, like, I'm, I'm from Texas.

Right. And if I was wearing cowboy boots to school, everyone would think of me as a Texan. And I'd probably think of myself as a Texan more by work and

Speaker 4: act more like a Texan, react to things like a Texan. Yeah. So better that you react to things like you are, you know, very, very dedicated to Islam or very, very dedicated to the LDS church and clothing helps that.

Speaker 3: Which then goes into the next category of Catholic wear is mortification wear. These days you know, mostly the, the religion that mostly still does this is Catholics for people who aren't familiar with this. This is when they wear things that intentionally hurt them. Like sackcloth,

Speaker 4: which is just uncomfortable to like actively like stuff that [00:29:00]

Speaker 3: Well, I mean, the one of the ones I've seen, like, even some, keep in mind, this is just some Catholic orders.

This isn't something that, like, all Catholics do, or all devote Catholics do. It's people who are devoted in some way. Devout. It's also devout. So, an example here would be Kaleesh. I believe they're called Khalees this is a chain or cord, or cord worn around the thigh or waist to cause mild discomfort.

Speaker 4: Which everyone learned about by watching the movie The Da Vinci Code.

Speaker 3: Yeah so modern versions are made of woven horsehair or scratchy materials although they can sometimes have like spikes in them that are meant to dig into you. As was shown in The Da Vinci Code, right? Yeah, well, and I think that that's actually what a lot of people, when you're wearing something like this, you typically want to go all in for the coolness factor.

Well, and it reminds

Speaker 4: me of girls cutting, honestly.

Speaker 3: Yeah. That's just a similar itch. It's about learning emotional control and self control and mastery over your emotions. And therefore, I view it as, like, A tier related or S tier related in terms of [00:30:00] religious culture. clothing, especially if it's opt in.

If it was a mandatory thing, then it'd be horrible. Horrible. Yeah. Opt in status thing. You got hair, shirt, undergarment. That's meant to be uncomfortable. There's something called a pentatile belt, which is a leather or cloth belt worn tightly around the waist intentionally uncomfortable shoes, which is something that the Puritans used to do as well.

Speaker: Wait, really? Okay.

Your shoes are quite sensible. They are for sizes too small. I could whittle you new ones. Nonsense. The pain purifies my predilection for pleasure. Your alliteration sounds dangerously like poetry. My apologies. Strike me, silence!

Speaker 3: And abstaining from country comfortable clothing altogether is another thing. And so yeah, I guess that's part of

Speaker 4: the sackcloth thing is if you wear sackcloth under your clothes, just itchy, scratchy, very uncomfortable. So no matter what you're wearing, you can look respectable, but beneath it's like, Oh,

Speaker 3: yeah.

So here's my thing was the larger Catholic faction, [00:31:00] faction of clothing. I think that, pretty much everything they have works really well and is nice. The problem is, is almost nothing is mandated.

Speaker 5: And

Speaker 3: as such, I cannot tell that somebody is a Catholic when I look at them. And most Catholics have nothing that signifies them as uniquely Catholic.

So despite the potentiality of Catholic wear, I'd have to put them in a C tier.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Unless everyone got to dress like a priest or nun, which I feel like would change everything because I think they're great outfits. I think they're great. If we had to just look at priest and nun outfits, like the traditional black cassock and traditional black habit and robes for women, A tier for me.

Speaker 3: I'd say S tier.

Speaker 4: S tier. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Well, then you can,

Speaker 4: you can kind of tell how good religious wear is by how often it shows up in anime and oh my gosh, does anime love nun outfits and priest outfits. Am I right? I [00:32:00] mean, come on.

Speaker 3: All the badass nuns. Well, you got, you got Dogwood, right? From Trigon. That's a great character.

Anyway, so now let's go to the various Jewish outfits. Okay. And we're not going to be exhaustive here because Jews have some of the biggest diversity in religious outfits. Yes. Which I actually, I don't know how I feel about it. So. Part of me is like, it's a negative thing because you know, it means that everyone, unless they're used to the various different types of, for example, her righty dress, they may know that you are a religious extremist of some variety, but no, exactly.

Because

Speaker 4: there's

Speaker 3: a huge amount of inter community identity. So, We can go over the just to Google some before we go further here. Is it Yemenite Jewish dress and Sephardic Jewish dress to start? Okay.

Speaker 4: Sephardic. Well, I guess historical Sephardic [00:33:00] Jewish clothing is pretty fricking cool, but I don't know how much of that's historical dress versus. Yeah, I'm not seeing any modern Sephardic Jewish clothing here. So what is the

Speaker 3: I don't know. I, I think that they don't have this strict things on modern Sephardic Well, then

Speaker 4: that makes it D tier, F tier.

If there isn't like a cohesive, like if, if Google images will not show me, Modern people in religious dress and they, they failed. It's not a brand. It's not a thing.

Speaker 3: The, the Yemenite one is to me just too garish when it's unique. It is I, I, I don't like all of the, the fancies of it and it's garish

Speaker 4: focused on peacocking instead of your devotion, right?

Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it looks like peacocking. But now let's look at the, at the

Speaker 4: we've got the, we've got the fur round discs and we got the hats and we got the curly cues for the men. Now this is, I think this goes back to a different podcast conversation we had about othering males and [00:34:00] oppressing, oppressing males by making them dress uniquely. This is among the most distinctive everyday wear for all male practitioners of a religion.

Maybe the most,

Speaker: right? This is, this is the thing. Of, of what, the Satmar?

Speaker 4: Yeah, the Satmar. I'm, I'm, I'm. Yeah,

Speaker: so,

Speaker 3: with The Big Fur Disk,

Speaker 4: and we've got the, The

Speaker 3: Satmar, and Ger, Hesidim dress. Mm hmm. It's, it is very, very othering.

And I think specifically you know, when you're looking at something like the Streisand Heim's or whatever they're called the, the big for circular hats, those are

Speaker: amazing.

Speaker 3: They're amazing. And what I think does very good for them is that they appear to me like they, they show the culture pretty well.

Typically when I see somebody in one of those, I imagine somebody who's like, and happy. And that's what the movement is known for. Is being very Sort of over the top in their, in their cel celebratory nature.

Speaker 5: Mm-Hmm. [00:35:00]

Speaker 3: The more celebratory ones. Yeah. And then the other ones where, you know, you, you, you focus more on the long poeo, I believe they're called the, the curly Q things on the side.

I mean, they, it looks Jewish. It's fine. Like it, I, I'd say in terms of dress I put it in a tier.

Speaker 4: It is very distinctive. Yeah,

Speaker 3: it conveys what the religion is about. It's and it looks put together, like it doesn't look dirty or it doesn't look like a part. It's not like actively. distasteful, but it also comes close to being too much.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm, I'm on the edge. So also when we're talking about many Orthodox Jewish women, you have to cover your hair outside. What many women do is they just keep their hair very short and, or they shave their heads and they wear wigs. And if you're really devout, you will wear a veil over your wig. And this just starts to feel kind of excessive to me.

Like part of me is like, listen, if [00:36:00] you're covering your hair, don't cover your hair with fake hair. You know, you're still going out with hair. Normal people won't realize that you're wearing a wig and they will just, you're not looking modest. Like you're still showing your hair. The point is you don't show your hair.

And so I really don't like that. It seems more like. Classic Jewish rule bending instead of which I guess is super Jewish, right? You know, it's like, well, so I'm not allowed to do this. All right. Well, what's my way around it? I'll just wear a wig over my hair. Like that's like, okay,

Speaker 3: here's the rules as written now.

How do I get around there? It's

Speaker 4: so Jewish, but it also like really bothers me because we're not about rule following. We're about like. We're consequentialists.

Speaker 3: We, we mentioned this in another episode, but it's worse. So people don't think that you're just being like anti Semitic and saying this. This is something that, that especially the more Orthodox Jews do a lot like the fishing line that they're spending like a million dollars to keep up around Manhattan because it makes it all technically one location for some Hasidic Jews on the [00:37:00] Sabbath which allows them to move objects in between it.

And it's like, That's so like, obviously that's not the intent. Like when God made these laws for you, like assuming they came from God, he didn't mean for you to look for like niggling ways to get around it. Yeah. Like

Speaker 4: there's, you know, there's rules like you can't turn, you know, lights on and off during the Sabbath.

Okay, well, fine. So they create these lamps with like rotating shades. So you just rotate the shade around. to hide the light. It's like, no, no, you're still turning the light on and off. This is not so, especially because we're big sticklers on the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. And a lot of Jewish rule bending seems to be really focused on the letter of the law.

But I also see that as a feature, not a bug of the Jewish religion. I mean, I see the Jewish religion and I think the snake oven story indicates the Jewish religion. Is a religion of law. And so I also don't see it as, so for my culture, it seems like wrong, but I think it's really appropriate for Jewish culture, which is why I'm [00:38:00] so on the fence about the wig thing, because it it's, it's really good.

Like it's a great microcosm for Jewish rules, but at the same time, it drives me a little nuts because I'm like, Hmm, not the point. It seems like something our kids would do if we gave them rules. You know what I mean? Like they'd find some way around it.

Speaker 3: I I know I, I completely agree with you. Yeah.

So there, it might, it might fall to B tier for me. It's just too deontological. In terms of the way that the rules are laid out, where you can contrast it with something like the Amish where especially Mennonites. Yeah. Where

Speaker 4: with Mennonites it's like, okay, let's go old fashioned. Let's not do anything crazy, but you know, let's not be so old fashioned that it gets difficult and time consuming.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and also this is the problem with Jewish dress codes is they are more driven by what they are forced to wear instead of by what they are not allowed to wear.

Amish dress is primarily driven by bans on specific things that are seen as too garish or over the top. And as Coco

Speaker 4: Chanel [00:39:00] said, elegance is refusal.

Speaker 3: Yeah, the thing that leads to Jewish dress being so unique looking like the more Hasidic factions is specific pieces of clothing or elements that they feel they have to wear, like the polios or the hat cover, the head coverings or the various other parts where like there's some line here, Or here that could be interpreted as mandating this particular fashion item.

And then, you know, it just over the centuries, more and more unique fashion items get layered on top and eventually, you know, if the religion goes on for another 10, 000 years Random other items are going to be added and added and added until they're walking around with all the like bells and whistles and everything.

But

Speaker 4: here's one more argument for in terms of the function of fashions like these, the additive fashions that I do think is important to note, and especially uniquely helpful to tightly knit religious niche communities that live close to each other and have these rules around clothing the Amish and especially for example, Orthodox Jewish women [00:40:00] are empowered by these clothing and dress mandates because it creates cottage industries.

So there are many Amish who produce Amish clothing, and that is their, that's how they make money. That's how they survive. You know, it creates an economy for them that outsiders can't opt into and ruin. Many Orthodox women who need to make money for their families because their husbands are devoted to religious study make money.

By producing and selling wigs, for example, I was just listening to an interview with a former Orthodox Jewish wife who had seven children and many of her female friends in the community made and sold wigs and of course only to other orthodox Jewish women. But I do like that it creates economic opportunity within those communities, assuming that the people are living within commercial reach of each other.

Speaker 3: Okay. Okay. So you're going to put it at B tier. Next let's go to the Sikh. This is an interesting one. I, for me, it has like, Huge upsides and huge [00:41:00] downsides.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 3: The upside I generally thin