ruah arts group

I keep coming across these design contests, and this one looked like a good one. J.Jill, the slightly overpriced cross between Gap and Chico’s, is holding  design contest for the next Compassion Tee, a shirt whose net profit go towards the J.Jill Compassion Fund at the Boston Foundation. Partners (beneficiaries) include Ascension Place in Minneapolis and The Enterprising Kitchen in Chicago. The grand prize is a $2000 shopping spree at J.Jill and an Artista Creative Safari in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California (Ladies only on the safari).

When clothes shopping, do you find yourself wondering, “Is it a belt or skirt?” “Is it a bra or tank top?” “At what point do those jeans cease to be jeans and begin to be leg warmers?”

You’re not alone, certainly, despite the Cosmopolitan & Maxim lobby telling us otherwise. Carolyn Moynihan’s smart and stylish article reminds us of transcendent values in the art of good fashion.

She uses words like “art,” “symbol,” “dignity,” and “virtue,” not to shake a fundamentalist finger at trendsetters, but to bring our culture–particularly women–forward into a place where we realize our beauty, dignity and even our “feminine genius.” And in that shining summit we say, “I am too beautiful to treat myself like I am for sale at the cost of my dignity.” The word “dignity” can have a rather opaque connotation, but here we mean “worthy of being honored and revered.” Are you worthy of being honored? Then start treating yourself like it, and dressing likewise.