The first days of school are, once again, upon us. Teachers, parents and students alike are thinking about school supplies, those first lessons, the new routine. But for some students — especially female students in junior high and high school — and those who work with them, attention has also, once again, turned to the…
Mimi Hecht and Mushky Notik / Courtesy of MIMU MAXI We are living in an age of unprecedented democratization. Of fashion. Thanks to the rise of chains like Zara and H&M, which offer fresh-from-the-runway styles at ordinary-people prices, and to the emergence of social media, which gives every aspiring Anna Wintour an outlet, the fashionista…
Mushky Notik (left) and Mimi Hecht (right) created Mimu Maxi Together, sisters-in-law Mimi Hecht and Mushky Notik run Mimu Maxi, a fashion label the creates clothes that are both modest and chic. The women, members of the Crown Heights Hasidic community, came up with idea for the company when struggling to find something stylish to…
Getty Images // Ultra-Orthodox women in Israel Who are the gatekeepers of the conservative religious ideal of tznius, or modesty? This question has been argued and parsed on social media and on blogs in recent years as radicalism in the ultra-Orthodox communities has taken on new and more visible forms. A common misperception is that…
tznius craziness // An ad for children’s costumes shows female faces blanked out. Do you have the sneaking suspicion that an extreme focus on women’s and girls’ modesty has become the new normal in much of the Orthodox community? One man has gathered the evidence into an Evernote virtual notebook he titled “tznius craziness.” The…
Yosel Tiefenbrun looked in the mirror and he liked what he saw. The 23-year-old Chabad rabbi and apprentice at Maurice Sedwell, a bespoke tailor’s shop on London’s Savile Row, was wearing a vintage double-breasted jacket with gold buttons, tasseled Barker shoes, a claret bow tie and matching handmade hat and square handkerchief. Then he ran…
On a recent Sunday, Nechama Silverberg slipped into a vintage skirt at a pop-up consignment store in Brooklyn, trying on clothes as any other hip 20-year-old might, but for one difference: She carefully measured whether the skirt revealed her knees. Around her in the Frock Swap, an Orthodox clothing business celebrating its first anniversary, were…
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