Could climate change be the beginning of the end of garment-wearing as we now know it? The Handbook used to say “Endowed members should wear the temple garment both day and night”
The current handbook says “Members who receive the endowment make a covenant to wear the temple garment throughout their lives.” [section 38.5.5]
Maybe the Church leaders can used climate change as the reason for making changes to how we currently wear them. I imagine a letter from the First Presidency , to be read in Sacrament meeting could sound something like this:
To: General Authorities, General Officers, and the following leaders in the United States: Area Seventies; Stake, Mission, District, and Temple Presidents; Bishops and Branch Presidents
(To be read in sacrament meeting)
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
The world recently had its hottest year on record. While the cause of climate change it still hotly debated, what is certain is that we will continue to experiences unprecedented swings in temperature. With the Church expanding into parts of the world where extreme heat is common, and that heat now coming to other parts of the world, it has become apparent that the full time wearing of the Garments of the Holy Priesthood could present heath problems for our members, as well as cultural difficulties in developing countries.
After much counsel with health experts and being guided by the spirit of prayer and fasting, we announce the following changes to be implemented immediately with regard to the wearing of the Garments of the Holy Priesthood.
- Garments are optional for use outside of the Temple. Endowed members may continue to wear the Garment daily if they desire.
- Garments are required for use while performing the ordnances of the Temple.
- Garments will be free of cost to any Endowed person.
It is important to remember, that all the protection promised in the Endowment Ceremony will still be in effect. It is also expected than members will still dress in a manner that represents the sanctity of the body as a temple.
Bishop Bill’s wish list
Can climate change lessen the blow to the die hard members who are still smarting from when the Church changed to two piece garments? Instead of bowing to fashion and “the world”, it is because of the climate is changing, and wearing garments 24/7 is no longer healthy. Or maybe becoming a world wide Church with growth in Africa where garments just don’t work as a daily apparel can placate those members.
Do you think climate change will change how the Church views the wearing of the Garment? If they do change, and something like the above letter is implemented, will there be much blow back from the members? Will the younger members rejoice in the streets? Will there be a new division amongst the members, with those that continuing to wear them 24/7 positioning themselves as living a “higher law”?
Wheat & Tares 
As a woman I would like to see sleeveless garments cut in a way they won’t show at the neckline. They also should be cut so they come about halfway down the thigh instead of hitting the knee or below. I observe my husband’s garments only come halfway down the thigh, why is that okay for him and not me? I often avoid wearing dresses because it is such a pain to figure out if a particular skirt is going to be too short for a particular pair of garments at the particular weight I am which of course varies. All my skirts are at least knee length but when a woman walks, sits and bends over it can be a real pain to predict if garments will show or not. It also depends on the particular style and varying size of garments. It shouldn’t be such a pain or so hard to manage or predict.
Plus the color of garments go off and they get ugly and grayish so quickly. It makes them unattractive. Women have a hard enough time feeling their bodies are unattractive without unattractive underwear. Perhaps an array of different colors would help. As we become a more diverse church, people of different races find white garments show through their clothing in a different way as it contrasts dark skin. Plus, some races tend to be shorter and the garments come much lower on the body requiring longer dresses than current fashion or practicality in hot countries.
I personally feel garments are more comfortable than not wearing garments, even in heat. The particular kind I select are silky, lightweight and not hot at all. They protect my skin from rough seams on clothing and they absorb sweat which quickly dries protecting my clothing. However, not everyone has the same experiences. Many women find garments cause discomfort and endless problems at certain stages of life. We shouldn’t expect people to have the same needs and ability to conform. Let people wear garments as they feel most protected and inspired as often or rarely as they choose.
Let them be special, not oppressive.
I find it problematic that men control the kind of underwear women wear. That is unacceptable in my opinion. The manufacture, styles, lengths, and colors of women’s underwear in the church should be entirely controlled by women. If we are going to market and sell underwear, the women in charge should be responsive to what the consumer wants and provide a wide variety of flexible fashions, fabrics and sizes. Plus costs should be defrayed by the church even more than they currently are. With so much money in the bank, as an important symbolic and ritual part of remembering our promises to follow Christ, maybe they should be free or available with an optional donation.
I think changing the ways we handle garments could do a lot for all members of the church.
One more idea, garment bottoms in the form of a slip, with the knee markings on the hem, to be worn under a dress. It would just be so much easier to determine what shows and what doesn’t with a dress. I am aware a church leader in charge of garments has said no to this suggestion. I would like leaders to say clearly why they say no to that. After all there have been a wide variety of styles through the ages. Why is that problematic for male leaders in charge of this? I believe it is a way to control or police women’s bodies and clothing. If not, leaders should be clear what their motives really are. What are their goals for garments? The motives of leaders about garments, influences how women feel about the garments and temple attendance. Leaders should consider their impact on members comfort and trust in this area. Openness could increase trust.
I do not think climate change would be a reason given to change the policies regarding garment wearing. The church is too conservative. Consider the response with mask wearing – using a socially responsible reason won’t fly with a lot of members. They would have to come up with another reason.
I can totally see a division between those that live the “higher law” and those who rejoice in their new found freedom from garments. This would be just another level of judgement to make others less than. Consider how members have responded to the change in policy regarding temple marriage. You can now be married civilly so that all your family and friends can share in this momentous event and still be sealed immediately after. Obviously there are those who do this, but I read far too many stories of siblings and parents who have to wait unnecessarily in the parking lot, lobby, or visitor’s room – excluded – instead of included on the special day. These couples don’t choose a temple marriage because they have to wait a year to be sealed, they choose it to virtue signal (and perhaps have been pressured to do so).
I know a few women who enjoy wearing garments, as @lws329 attests. I know some who don’t care. I know a LOT who would love to not have to wear them. There are so many that intensely dislike wearing garments and already find any excuse not to wear them. That said, I wholeheartedly agree with with #lws329 that it is never the place of church leaders (read men) to police what underwear women wear. If my understanding of church history is accurate, the garment was originally only worn in the temple. That should have never changed.
This first presidency letter assumes that somebody with authority cares that garment wearing is uncomfortable for the average member, can be a meaningful barrier to worship, and wants to help.
I don’t see any evidence of this unfortunately.
I don’t think there will ever be a letter like this. What I think will happen is that missionaries will start emphasizing that garment wearing is “between the individual and God” and that means wear them as best you can. And in those climates where is is too hot, people working outside will decide God does not want them tortured, and where air conditioning is rare because of poverty, the same thing will happen. Individuals will decide that God doesn’t hate them and doesn’t want them to suffer and will start wearing them in a more realistic manner. Just as women have decided that it is impossible to wear bottoms without staining during that time of the month and nursing mothers have decided that while nursing the garments just don’t work. More people will start wearing them according to their individual needs rather than dictated by air conditioned old men in SLC.
“performing the ordnances of the Temple.”
That will certainly wake up the folks to tend to sized off!
familywomen is right, the Church couldn’t attribute a major policy change like this to climate change without alienating the rightwing who don’t believe in climate change. This isn’t climate change! These weather related disasters are the prophesied signs of the Second Coming!
If the Church lightens up about garments, my guess is will be quietly dropped. We won’t hear much about it at Church or Gen Conf. The question in the temple recommend interview will have its wording changed to something that allows for people to say ‘yes’ even though they’ve adapted their garment wearing habits to something more comfortable.
DaveW: are you making fun of the Lord’s anointed? That was an official FP letter. If they want ordnance in the Temple, so be it! 🙂
One thing that bothers me (and I know it shouldn’t but it does) is that when I was a TBM (almost my entire adult life) I would wear the garments day and night 7 days a week….but I see fully active members now who ditch garments whenever it’s convenient. On one hand, i am libertarian about these kind of behaviors. You do what you want. On the other hand, when you prop yourself up as some kind of TBM and then ditch garments except for Sundays, you are trying to have it both ways. I remember my wife wearing garments every summer all summer when it was so uncomfortable and inconvenient. Fewer “active” members doing that now it appears.
Josh, I think the internet has changed garment wearing just like it has changed everything else, especially for young people. People get on line and they find other people who feel exactly as they do about garments, then instead of feeling alone and blaming themselves for being so unrighteous that they dislike what it “sacred”, they can begin to tell themselves that if this feeling is common among trying struggling Mormons, then maybe it isn’t me, it is the garments. Once you stop blaming yourself for disliking them, you can more logically analyze whether or not you *have* to wear then in 107 degree heat while mowing the lawn. Then as you give yourself permission to not wear them mowing the lawn, you decide you hate sleeping in them, and give yourself permission to not wear them 24/7/365. Pretty soon, you find yourself only putting them on to go to church or the temple, and still feel you wear them “throughout your life” and that it *really* is between you and God how and when you wear them.
As an oldster, I was raised very strictly that they were 24/7/365, with showering, sex, and swimming being the *only* exceptions. Not too far away from my grandmother who kept one foot out of the bathtub with her garments on that foot, had sex through them and was proud enough to brag that all of her 10 children were conceived through the garments and of course never went swimming. My mother hated them with a purple passion and didn’t believe Joseph Smith was anything but a con man and still wore them till she died at 84. So, as an oldster, I couldn’t gradually fade out the garments, but had to do a cold turkey, with a strong decision that God would not require something that made me feel he hated me.
So, I think the church will continue to slowly ease up on the pressure to wear them until it is more of a suggestion rather than a hard and fast rule. I mean, if you know people in your ward who only wear them on Sunday, but still have a temple recommend, then your bishop probably knows too and still signed the recommend. So things are already easing up from 30 years ago when I tried to explain that for reasons that I did share with the bishop, the garments made me suicidal. But that wasn’t acceptable and I had to just buck up and get over it.
I agree with those here who’ve said that the church will quietly emphasize 24/7 wearing of the garment less. Seems like a poor way of changing policy, but you know, that how it seems to work, doing what’s right and all.
You’ll eventually have two classes of Mormons; the old guard who still wear garments 24/7 and the younger or others who are just tired and who don’t care anymore.
Unfortunately this comes too late as I will never wear another LDS garment ever. I remember in my mission taking with companions and wondering if it was ok to take garments off for sex – and hoping that we’d be lucky enough to find a girl liberal enough to not insist on garments during sex. I mean I can’t believe I would actually consider marrying someone with that mindset. I recently let my family know that when I die I will not be buried in church (and definitely not temple clothes) but instead in my favorite running clothes brand.
We recently had stake conference and had TWO talks about wearing garments. The visiting 70 gave a talk straight out of the 1990s at the leadership session that spent a bunch of time on the topic (I wasn’t there, but I heard about it) and then a member of the stake presidency devoted his whole time slot in the adult session to garments. I guess somewhere up the chain of command the topic must have been emphasized recently.
Garments work pretty well for me, so I don’t personally get too worked up about the topic, but my reaction to the stake conference is that we went through the effort to get all these people together on a Saturday afternoon and evening (and these are generally the most active members that take the time to show up to these meetings) and the most pressing and important topic we could spend our time on is underwear? Maybe they’d tell me that I’m clearly missing the sacredness and power of the garment, but to me it just isn’t a topic that makes my life any better, nor does it help me make anyone else’s life better. It was a lost opportunity to improve or edify.
I don’t think Church leaders will use climate change as a reason to loosen up garment wearing requirements. As has already been mentioned, the Church is full of climate change deniers, and I imagine this extends to the Q15 as well. Even if the Q15 accepted climate change, I think they’d still think “temple covenants”, including garment wearing, are more important than sweating more as the temperatures rise.
Instead of climate change, I think it will be the number of young people who just stop wearing garments in violation of Church rules that will drive the change. Rather than risk young members developing a habit of not following all the Church rules, which could lead to all other kinds of unwanted “disobedience”, Church leaders will likely eliminate the requirement to wear garments 24/7.
Kevin Pearson (a 70 and very much a hardliner) made special mention of this “problem” in a BYU devotional last fall (https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/kevin-w-pearson/the-abundant-life-2/):
“My young friends, I plead with you to take your temple covenants seriously! Keeping our sacred covenants with God is crucial, not optional. We are deeply dismayed by the casual and even cavalier way some treat their temple covenants, including the casual and inconsistent wearing of the temple garment. There is among some a growing sense of spiritual apathy and casual covenant keeping that is becoming increasingly common among those who should know and do better.
Covenant keeping has nothing to do with personal preference and convenience and everything to do with commitment. I am confident that if these sacred covenants were better understood, they would be honored and ‘cherish[ed] . . . above all other commitments.’ It is through making and keeping sacred temple covenants that we qualify for immortality, eternal life, and a fullness of joy! Are your baptismal and temple covenants central to your life or merely ancillary?”
I think Pearson’s crying about the younger generation not wearing garments as much as they used to will prove to be completely futile. The trend has being progressing for quite some time, and will likely only continue to do so.
I guess I am probably one of the people that @josh h is critical of. For decades I wore garments, even though I didn’t find wearing them meaningful, because it was a minor inconvenience (I am male, so wearing garments is probably easier for me than a lot of females). However, my wife and I enjoy travelling, and we have learned to travel very, very light (no checked luggage even for trips that are over a month long). A few years ago, we were planning for a very long trip where we were going to be visiting some very hot locations as well as some very cold locations. In order to fit things better into my small carry on, I decided to purchase some “Gentile underwear”. Not packing garments (I didn’t have to pack tops at all!!!) really did save a lot of space (the material I’d chosen was much more compact to pack than anything the Church offers). In addition, I found the underwear I’d selected to be very comfortable and easy to hand wash and dry while travelling. After returning from this trip, I purchased some more Gentile underwear and haven’t looked back. I like to wear shorts a lot, and it is *so nice* not to have 90+% of all men’s shorts be cut just short enough that my garments are peaking out the bottom. Shopping for shorts is now so much easier. I didn’t find the symbolism of wearing garments useful to me at all before, so I don’t miss wearing garments for that reason, either. I now only wear garments to church and the temple, and I do it for the reasons that @josh h doesn’t like–I wear garments to church so that ward members won’t notice that I don’t wear garments any longer. I understand the duplicity of this practice, but I honestly don’t feel bad about it. I just figure why rock the boat over such a small thing?
I think that the OP’s suggestions for how to deprecate garment wearing are the way to go. If enacted, the younger generations will almost immediately just stop wearing garments because almost no one really enjoys wearing them in the first place (people can get used to them, but not many people really like them when they first start wearing them). At the same time, allowing people to continue wearing garments 24/7 if they so desire doesn’t alienate the older generation who have worn garments their whole lives. Yes, these people will look down on the younger generation for awhile, but the younger generation will largely ignore their objections. Besides the old timers will die off soon enough anyway.
From where I’m sitting, the future is already here. I can’t tell you the number of active LDS people I know younger than about forty-ish who are not hung up on wearing garments through most of the weekday, especially with athleisure. A positive development, if you ask me. And like DaveW I’ve heard some doubling down from mid-level leadership, but it doesn’t seem to faze anybody. “Ok, Boomer–moving on.”
I was not aware the doctrine and policy of the garment was based on how far one lived from the equator and the availability of air conditioning. Do temples in Florida have different instructions on wearing the garment than temples in Canada? Should they?
I think the question worth consideration is will traditional and progressive Latter-day Saints be able to coexist and share a common church culture? One the the great successes of the LDS church has been its ability to provide a shared church experience to traditional, mainstream and progressive members. But this may be because the the leadership and mainstream membership have generally leaned more traditional. Untested is what happens when the leadership becomes less traditional and the mainstream membership more worldly?
There is a Wikipedia article titled “Relationships between Jewish religious movements” and the first sentence is: “The relationships between the various denominations of American Judaism are complex and include a range of trends from the conciliatory and welcoming to hostile and antagonistic.” For the LDS church it can be observed that there is a growing hostility and antagonism of the mainstream church leadership against the “traditionalists”. The essential divide being the complaint of the traditionalists under the label of the “Restoration Movement” that the modern church is no longer true to its founding principles and doctrine. Observe that this “Restoration Movement” is different from the “Fundamentalist” movement that split from the church long ago on the issue of Polygamy.
It is not a new thing for the church leadership to be hypersensitive about its claim of authority. Progressive members have been facing this obstacle for a long time. What is new is that now traditional members are experiencing conflict with leadership. This is fascinating to consider given that the First Presidency and Apostles are men of senior age. How has the church experienced so much change to its program and its positioning with the world in so few years given the people in charge would be considered hardened traditionalists?
My hypothesis is that the uprooting of church traditions is decreasing the cultural stability of the church. Leadership seems to be responding by (1) Exerting its absolute power and authority over the church and (2) Emphasizing an inclusive, generic Christianity that softens the traditional peculiarities of the LDS church. The philosophy of the leadership seems to be that if they are less judgmental of the members then the members will be less critical of them. But those members who are critical of leadership will be shown the door.
Will traditionalists support a church leadership that does not seem to care about tradition? Will progressives support a church if they feel they are placated but never fully satisfied? Will leadership be able to steady the unrest if they themselves are unsure of where they stand or should stand?
Honest question here: when exactly do we covenant to wear the garment day and night? I have searched my memory and cannot recall the place/time/ordinance. I remember that we certainly covenant to not laugh loudly, or at anyone in authority – but the garment wearing…… I am fuzzy on.
I haven’t read all the comments yet so perhaps someone covered this point already – I don’t see those types of changes happening because the people who make the decisions are old white men who have air conditioned homes, offices and automobiles.
Cam: that would be never. There is no covenant to wear the garment. There is simply an instruction. Of course several of our leaders view instructions as mandatory but still, there is no covenant.
Elder Pearson also reportedly tells boys that they covenanted to go on missions when they got baptized. This is false and is spiritual abuse. It should be publicly corrected by a Q15.
I’ll begin by stating how annoyed I am by the church’s persistent efforts to imply that there is a covenant to wear the garment when there clearly is not in the text of the endowment, only instruction to do so. Maybe some of the older generations see being told to do something by the church as the equivalent of a covenant, but if we’re going to be legalistic, which is something we’re good at in the church, there isn’t a covenant. The updated recommend questions have dropped that disingenuous insinuation, so I’m surprised it’s still in the handbook. It will most certainly go away eventually.
Regarding whether, when, and how things will change, I would point to a previous change as a guide: the official objection to contraception. By the time it finally disappeared from the handbook in the late 1990s, a younger generation of members were already making up their own minds on the subject and disregarding the official guidance. The official change could be viewed as an acquiescence to the lived reality of the church membership. In the case of garments, it’s clear that there is a younger generation who are making their own decisions. I would guess that even now some younger bishops may well be telling those who ask that it is a personal decision when and where to wear the garment. This view will percolate up the ranks as younger leaders move up the ladder and become younger GAs. I expect within a decade there will be more revisions to handbooks and temple recommend scripts. I think it may take longer before there is some kind of official letter like the example here that acknowledges the unofficial reality, but I think it will eventually happen.
I don’t think it’ll have much to do with global warming. More than anything, the church is just slowly (…painfully slowly) figuring out that it’s impractical to to expect everyone worldwide to dress like they live in 19th century Illinois.
As things inevitably change, there will absolutely be some old hardliners telling people they’re not doing it right because they aren’t suffering enough.
IMO people should keep their underwear choices to themselves, lol. Wear them all the time if you want…or not. Just don’t tell me about it.
The lore surrounding garments makes them seem way more interesting than they really are…I remember being told/warned to wear them incessantly, that they should never be put on the ground, that you’re supposed to put in your right arm/leg first. I’ve known people who claim to shower with one leg so they’re touching them at all times. I’ve heard heated arguments whether women should wear a bra on top or underneath. I’ve even heard debates at BYU whether you’re supposed to leave them on for your wedding night, or at least put them back on right after. Then there’s the urban legends of them stopping bullets or being magically fireproof.
Religious clothing obviously isn’t new or unique to Mormonism…but for some reason they seem especially prone to tall tales (both inside and outside of Mormonism)
I don’t think it’ll have much to do with global warming. More than anything, the church is just slowly (…painfully slowly) figuring out that it’s impractical to to expect everyone worldwide to dress like they live in 19th century Illinois.
As things inevitably change, there will absolutely be some old hardliners telling people they’re not doing it right because they aren’t suffering enough.
IMO people should keep their underwear choices to themselves, lol. Wear them all the time if you want…or not. Just don’t tell me about it.
The lore surrounding garments makes them seem way more interesting than they really are…I remember being told/warned to wear them incessantly, that they should never be put on the ground, that you’re supposed to put in your right arm/leg first. I’ve known people who claim to shower with one leg so they’re touching them at all times. I’ve heard heated arguments whether women should wear a bra on top or underneath. I’ve even heard debates at BYU whether you’re supposed to leave them on for your wedding night, or at least put them back on right after. Then there’s the urban legends of them stopping bullets or being magically fireproof.
Religious clothing obviously isn’t new or unique to Mormonism…but for some reason they seem especially prone to tall tales (both inside and outside of Mormonism)
I am fascinated by the open argument that if a church teaching is an “instruction” then members are welcome to ignore it. I say this as an active member who deliberately chooses to ignore various church “instructions”! I just don’t speak out about my rebellion. It has always been the case that members can choose for themselves how much or how little of the church they follow, with some of the choices leading to various degrees of church discipline ranging from the unofficial penalty that one is not suited for certain callings to the more official penalties of not qualifying for a temple recommend or outright suspension of one’s priesthood and excommunication. But the reality is and has been for a while that as long as one is not promoting apostasy then church leaders grant considerable latitude to members to choose for themselves.
Where this independence gets interesting is where there church standards are perceived to be strict and non-negotiable. The Word of Wisdom is one. I dare say that reports of an active member smoking or drinking alcohol will invite scrutiny by leadership. The concern if a member drinks coffee is less but exists. All the other instruction in the Word of Wisdom is ignored as a church standard.
In my opinion the wearing of the garment is more similar to the standard to not smoke or consume alcohol. But now it seems many younger members view the garment instruction similar to not drinking coffee. And some are even saying the garment wearing instruction is so lacking importance it is similar to the instruction to eat our vegetables – yes we should do that but we are not going to dictate what that means and we are not going to condemn each other for how we do it (not condemning is actually good policy, but we Christians should all appreciate good instruction).
Some time in the late 20th century it became a priority for the church leadership to democratize the temple. There is good in doing this. There is also peril. The initial problem I saw was that the church leaders pushed “going to the temple” as the next step in spiritual progression and they would push too hard. So converts would set their goal of going to the temple and they would do it. They would then realize the experience didn’t fulfill them as expected or they would conclude there was nothing more for them to do in the church and they would soon drift into inactivity. The new member being pushed to go to the temple did not help the new member and it did not help the church.
The peril we are seeing now with the democratization of the temple is it is diminishing the meaning of the temple experience. This is sociology 101. If everyone can do “something and if there is no special behavior or status expected to be able to do “something” then the “something” is not going to be special. We know this intuitively between shopping at Walmart or shopping at Costco. Costco checks for you having a membership card to enter the store and to purchase items. You need to be more special to shop at Costco than at Walmart – anyone can shop at Walmart. Consequently, the status of Walmart is lower than the status of Costco.
So I am curious how church leadership will respond. If temple instruction is not treated seriously than the status of the temple will decline, even as more members participate. But if leadership raises the bar of temple instruction and of holding the privilege of attending the temple than the attraction of the temple will increase for some members but decrease for others who will choose not to be judged for not keeping temple standards.
“Some time in the late 20th century it became a priority for the church leadership to democratize the temple. There is good in doing this. There is also peril. The initial problem I saw was that the church leaders pushed “going to the temple” as the next step in spiritual progression and they would push too hard. So converts would set their goal of going to the temple and they would do it. They would then realize the experience didn’t fulfill them as expected or they would conclude there was nothing more for them to do in the church and they would soon drift into inactivity. The new member being pushed to go to the temple did not help the new member and it did not help the church.”
– A Disciple
Established members also struggle with “the experience didn’t fulfill them as expected” and “we completed the checklist of ordinances – we’re good” before checking out. There are also variable factors about “the price of admission” of temple attendance – some chartered buses, some babysitting rings (unpaid service projects and child care trades), and geographical placement of temples (prioritizing individuals without work who have a car and/or a solid friendship ring and can afford the time and gas) [ Ziff did a whole study on this].
The main problem comes back to the “should” of the lived experience (“I should but I don’t want to/can’t realistically do so/it’s a priority for me, but not my family”) and the “should” of the doctrine/church teaching/church culture (“Do it anyways – and our local organization may throw you a logical bone in terms of chartering a bus, setting up a site for child care (unpaid) and/or child care trades, or change some wording, and encourage your family to change their ways”).
I live in Brazil. I love to wear garments, but I hate the fashion it’s made by the Church. It’s not cultural aceptable for us that openings in bottom pieces for “easy that nature services” in man’s garments. A bottom without any openings, like a shorts or a bermuda would be much more interesting. But, after said all that, I need to say: weare garments in a 42ºC today is like to walk at the inferno! I hope for the day I could choose wear garments at 22ºC and choose not use then in a hot day like today.
I’d refer any interested party to Episodes 138 and 139 of the “At Last She Said It” podcast, an extended interview with Afton Southam Parker in which she discusses, among other garment-related topics, her conversations with the folks in the Church clothing department responsible for garment design and patterning. Her description of this man’s (yes, women’s garments are designed, no surprise, by men) distaste at discussing the details of difficulty with menstrual issues, yeast infections, and other “intimate” issues was instructive – he clearly had so bad a case of the squicks he could hardly listen.
This tells us a lot.
Personally, as Minnesota summers become even more hot and humid, I’d settle for a decent performance fabric. Maybe a garment designed by someone who doesn’t live in a zero-humidity, high-desert environment. Sister Parker’s comments about coping with garments in Thailand would have been amusing if they hadn’t been so aggravating.