Teen girls face more pressures today than ever beforeto fit in, to dress stylishly, to express themselves through their clothes and actions. Pamela A. Stillinger, director of events and administration at Abounding Grace Christian Church in Schenectady sees young girls struggle with those pressures every week and decided to do something about it.
Fashion Meets Faith` is a two-day conference split into sessions titled `Modesty Rocks` and `Maximizing Beauty` on Friday, April 1, and Saturday, April 2. Stylist, author and motivational speaker Shari Braendel hosts an event that teaches women and girls how to dress trendy and modestly.
`One of the things, especially for girls, is that we as Christians have assumed that our girls know what modest is, so what’s happened is we say ‘don’t do this, don’t do that’ and we’re teaching them what not to do,` said Braendel. `They’re getting advice from the world and learning how to dress from the world.`
What the world is teaching girls, said Stillinger, is that the way they dress says more about who they are than what’s inside, something that often leads to self-esteem and self-image issues. That’s a notion she wants the church’s young congregation to get away from.
`It’s so difficult to find things to wear that if you don’t have a certain body type, you don’t look good in it. Either it’s very short or a lot of cleavage is showing and it’s about body image,` said Stillinger. `We want girls to understand they were created beautiful, God created them beautifully, and they need to see themselves that way.`
Both Stillinger and Braendel said that the word `modesty` is sometimes thought to be synonymous with drab, un-trendy or boring. In reality, that’s not so.
`The bible talks about modesty and a big reason for that is because when a man is looking at a woman visually, especially boys in their teen years, they’re not looking at a warm personality or how caring, giving and compassionate they are,` said Stillinger. `We want girls to understand you can still be dressed fashionably and modestly and let your inner beauty do the work for you.`
For Braendel, who spent more than 20 years working in the fashion industry, spreading the message of conquering modesty was her calling.
`It really happened when I was praying and I felt God saying I needed to take all the knowledge I have in the fashion industry and take that information to the women of the church,` said Braendel. `I prayed about it for seven years God was lining up ahead of me because I did almost 50 events that first year.`
`Fashion Meets Faith` inadvertently worked off the TLC television show, `What Not To Wear` which pitted two fashion stylists against an ordinary person with no fashion sense or style.
`The show had just come out and all of a sudden the whole image industry was at the forefront because so many Christians were watching that TV show, it was an open door,` said Braendel.
More than five years later, Braendel no longer has a consulting firm in Florida and instead lives in North Carolina, traveling around the country every weekend for speaking engagements and conferences.
`I typically do a teen event on night and a women’s event the next day, which his more an emphasis on women helping teens to see themselves as beautiful and giving them confidence,` said Braendel.
Attendees will learn how to dress for their body type, makeup tips and undergo a color analysis to find the perfect colors for their skin tone (there are 36 individual colors that look good on six different skin tones). The teen event finishes with a fashion show by local girls to spotlight the styles they learned about.
Braendel also has a book she’ll have for sale called `Good Girls Don’t Have to Dress Bad,` a style guide with full color and non-airbrushed models.
`For women who don’t have a clued, that would be the perfect place to start,` said Braendel.
Braenedel will be at Abounding Grace on Friday, April 1, at 7 p.m. with an event for girls sixth grade and up. The Saturday, April 2, event is from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Pre-registration is required by March 25 and registration forms can be found online at www.aboundinggracec.org by clicking on the `What to Wear` link. For more information about Braendel, visit www.fashionmeetsfaith.com.
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