I will share with you something personal about me. Before I became frum/religious I was very anti-esthetic like, anti-materialistic-worship like, and in fact you could say I was an “Au Natural granola type”. I used cloth diapers, sewed clothing, made our meals from scratch, organic soymilk from beans. My dream was to live and walk with Hashem humbly. I would never have been caught dead in my wildest dreams with a fur coat or leather couch. I was a vegetarian.
Anyhow, i grew up and ended up joining the “real world” eventually like most of us, and as I melted into the chareidi lifestyle I slowly found myself getting caught up and lost my head when it came to materialism. I won’t even go into detail to what extents I was willing to go in order to keep up with “looks and styles”. But I finally asked myself “where am I?” This is not me! WHen I look around at the majority of the ladies I am surrounded by in my neighborhood, and I feel ashamed that these righteous tzedakeses are turning heads when they cross the street! I am not sure they are even aware how “good they look”. But I have seen goyish men turn to stare.
Tznius is not even trying to keep up with styles. Tznius is suppose to be a statment. That you are like Avraham Avinu, going against the grain, against all of the world’s and society’s beliefs and styles. When ladies wear what is popular and stylish but in a “tznius way” I feel it sort of is like a compromise of our pure values.
This idea of “Kosher human hair wigs” is a bunch of baloney. How many European women have you heard of grow their hair for Industry purposes? It does not exist! ITs still grown on the heads of idol worshippers in India but exported for sale to Europe where they say “.. its European”. Its impossible that one can put a hechsher on a sheital, as if from the time its cut off the woman until its’ end creation some mashgiach will be watching over.
I will tell you a true story. In the place where my husband works there is a number of goyim from those countries. One day one of them approached my husband and shared with him, out of interest sake ” Yeah you know something,,,each year in our country back home our women shave off their long hair to bring as a offering to our idols in the temple and then we sell it to YOU, for your women who make the wigs…neat huh?”.
My husband was like super dumbfounded cause this was well AFTER the big explosion of the sheital crisis!!!
The one thing I really dislike all in all is the “putting on airs”, as people maneuver themselves across the room at parties, putting on an the elegant stunning act. In fact it says:
And what does Hashem your G-d ask of you?
To walk humbly with him.
Well its awfully hard to walk humbly with Abishter when you have all that materialism hanging off you.