Several Posts About Plainness

In order to un-clutter my sidebar, while still making old posts accessible, I have decided to list the posts by category. This is a list of my posts about plainness:

The New Plain
More About the New Plain
Plain Things: A Poem
Is Plainness Asceticism?
Time For A Coat

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Time for a Coat

The issue of plainness or simplicity has taken up more space on this blog than I had expected. But I am going to continue the discussion for awhile for the simple reason that I am now facing a buying decision that gives me a chance to apply the principles we've been discussing.

Here's the situation. My winter coat is pretty old. I don't remember how long I've had it, but it does look like it needs replacement (or not...depends on what's important). It has a few small tears in the fabric, the pockets have holes in them and won't reliably hold anything smaller than a book, and it looks a little dingy or greasy even after I have it cleaned. Talk about not fitting in: I sometimes sense that people in the building where I work are nervous about riding in the elevator with me when I wear this coat.

So if I get a new coat (or a better used coat?) what kind of coat should it be? Looking "plain" in some traditional Quaker or Mennonite sense is not necessarily desirable as I see it, but it's not a huge negative either if the coat makes sense for me otherwise.

I think I should get something of "high quality", but only in the sense that it is well-made and durable. To get something that will wear out quickly and have to be replaced seems like a waste of resources. On the other hand, I see no need for it to be precisely fitted as a tailor would do. The coats I've worn all my life have always been "off the rack" and they've always fitted me well enough for my taste.

Other things being equal I'd prefer that it be mass-produced by machine rather than tailor-made by hand, because I think that labor-saving is a good thing. Garments made entirely by hand seem to me like a luxury that will never be available to most people and therefore obviously aren't needed by anyone. But human labor is used even in making mass-produced clothes. It's important to me that I not support the exploitation of underpaid labor. If possible, I'd like the coat to be made by union labor or at least by people who benefit from work rules and wage rates that have resulted from labor union activity. If it is made in the U.S. so much the better, but if it is made elsewhere I'd at least like to have some way of checking on whether the workers that made it are paid fair wages.

I want the coat to be pretty warm, since New York winters can be cold, but not so bulky that it becomes a problem to move around in it. A hood would be good, but is not absolutely necessary.

Finally, within the constraints mentioned above I'd like it to be as inexpensive as possible (not a witness, just me being cheap). I'd be willing to pay more for a union-made garment than an imported garment made by underpaid labor. But I wouldn't pay much of a premium, if any, to get a "plain" coat made by the Amish or other traditional craftsmen.

So, Friends. How would you advise me? Where should I look for my new coat?

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Plain Things (A Poem)

I'm feeling a bit too tired to write something new about plainness today. But I'd like to paste in a poem called "Plain Things" I wrote some time ago:

Plain Things

The Sun Light at Dawn
Falling on Gray Pavement,
Old Houses,
New leaves, New Grass.

Raw peas pushed from the pod
With a thumb,
Snapping between the teeth,
Squirting juices in the mouth.

All raw fruits,
Blemished and pure
Sweet, tart, ripe,
Broken from their stems
By human hands.

A washed pane of glass
Passing Light
Between bright days
And this dark room.

A Bald head a gray beard.

A bare throat, no pearls.

A smile made of real teeth.

A human face like yours
With colors, flushes, pallors,
Expressions
Of its own.

- - - Rich Accetta-Evans (May 2002)

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The New Plain?

Two of the links that I included in my first post are to blogs by New York City Friends who have an interest in "plain" clothes. Depending on your prior knowledge of Quakerism (or lack thereof) this may surprise you either because:

1. You thought all Quakers dressed "plain" already, like the man on the Quaker Oats box, or the Amish believers who many people confuse with Quakers.
   
2. You thought it was a myth with no historical foundation at all that Quakers dress any differently than anyone else.
   
3. You don't expect seriously spiritual people to get hung up with issues like how you dress.
   

The truth, as usual, is more complex than either (1) or (2) above would suggest. Most Friends today do not dress "plain" in the sense that our ancestors did. When my Friend Larry appears at Meeting in his broad-brimmed black hat and his vest and collarless coat, he stands out as unique. The other Quaker men who are present favor blue jeans or slacks and sports shirts or workshirts. Many (before they met Larry) were probably unaware tht Quakers once really did look so much like the Amish that we don't like to be confused with.

One hundred and fifty years years ago, however, almost all the male Friends in meeting would dress a lot more like the Larry of today than like their own non-Quaker contemporaries. Plainness has has a complicated history among Friends.

In the very first years of Quakerism (say 1648 - 1700) there was no unique Quaker costume, but Friends did try to stay clear of any adornment they considered gaudy, immodest, vain, or frivolous, and they consciously abstained from modifying their clothing in order to keep up with fashion. In this they were quite different from certain other social groups of the time and quite similar to others. Think of the "Cavaliers" (generally high-church aristocrats with a fondness for foppery) vs the "Roundheads" (straight-laced Puritans) of the late 17th century. The Quakers were more like the Roundheads in this way, though in other ways, such as the crucial one of theology, they were anything but Puritan. My point here is that Quakers at first dressed pretty much like other "sober people" of the time. (One exception was George Fox, whose hommemade "leather breeches" were unique. Fox is generally credited as being the founder or originator of Quakerism, and his example was followed by other Friends in many things, but for some reason the leather breeches never caught on.)

By the early 1700's the situation had evolved. As other people changed their modes of dress and Quakers didn't (at least so much) Quaker clothing came to look more and more conspicuous. Quakers were pretty unpopular in some circles and their distinctive clothing made them easily identifiable targets for mockery and scorn. You might think this would be an incentive to Friends to try to blend in more with the ways of the world, but it actually had the opposite effect. Dressing plain and putting up with the world's disapproval became a marker of Quaker committment and of loyalty to the Quaker movement. It was seen, in fact, as a way of taking up the cross. Any Friends who might be tempted to compromise on this point earned the disapproval of their Meetings and could even be disowned if they persisted. Gradually, the definitions of what was and was not plain became much more defined. This continued to be the case until well into the 19th century. But in the last half of the nineteenth century and especially in the twentieth century most meetings stopped enforcing the older dress codes and most individual Friends stopped wearing their broad-brimmed hats, their bonnets, and their black or gray attire. Plainness persisted as an attractive ideal, but it was not spelled out in detail. Friends could dress pretty much in any way they wanted, but what they wanted (in most Meetings) was generally less flashy and ornate, less expensive, less formal, and more comfortable than what "fashion" would dictate.

So where does Larry come in? Or our new Friend Amanda? Outwardly they are starting to look a lot like our Quaker ancestors. But in my opinion they represent something new. A kind of "plainness" that differs from the plainness of 19th century Quakers in several ways.

1. The New Plain is voluntary rather than mandatory. There is no committee of elders measuring hat brims. If anything, the New Plain may be a tad defiant of the prevailing Quaker ethos.
   
2. The New Plain is more individualistic than communal. To dress this way inevitably sets one apart, not only from the wider society, but also from most Quakers themselves. Friends in the 1700's expected to look different from "the world", but they emphatically did not want to appear "singular" among their Friends.
   
3. The New Plain is improvised in its details. Since the Quaker community provides no guidelines, and there is no contemporary tradition to support their choice, these Friends have to make up their plainness as they go along: choosing fabrics, finding just the right hats, etc.
   
4. The New Plain justifies itself with new arguments, drawing in part on the Quaker past, but also reflecting contemporary realities.
   
5. The New Plain, while it is deeply serious, also incorporates irony and humour.
   
   

In my next post, I hope to illustrate these points a little more - using examples not only from Larry and Amanda's blogs, but from some other contemporary "plain Friends" and from some in the recent past, such as William Bacon Evans of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and Anna Curtis of New York Yearly Meeting, both of whom died in the mid twentieth century.

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