Modern habits

Harmony Hood ($208), Alban Cloak ($489), and Agnes Dress ($412). Photo by Julia Sherman.

Modest, natural, and snazzy—those were the three directions Mother Mary Magdalene gave artist Julia Sherman for designing the habits for the Community of Compassion, Mother Mary’s new Anglican Catholic order in Fort Worth, Texas. “You can’t just go to the store and buy a habit,” Mother Mary wrote to me. “Every order has to have a distinct one designed by the foundress, and you’re not supposed to copy anyone else.” The difference between two orders can be as simple as a few extra pleats in the skirt or as noticeable as Mother Teresa’s blue-striped, sari-inspired head covering.

But Sherman’s habits are something entirely new. Moreover, the JF & Son store in New York has partnered with Sherman to produce and sell the habits for secular customers. So while Mother Mary is praying in her peach-colored harem pants in Forth Worth, a young New York woman might be traipsing across Fifth Avenue in the very same design...

Sherman pointed out that the nun’s habit has undergone dramatic changes in the last century. “In the 1960s,” she explained, “feminist nuns lobbied to gain the right to do away with the habit altogether. As a result of their activism, young religious women today have ... reappropriated the symbol, modified it to their liking, and consider it to be an elegant wedding dress to be worn in perpetuity. One order, The Abbey of Regina Laudis, even made an alternate denim habit to be worn when they work, relating their lives to that of the American blue-collar laborer.”

Photo and text from The Paris Review, where there is more information on the components of habits (including "nunderwear") and their growing popularity among lay persons. 

Via The Dish.  (And I don't understand why the photographer had her dangle an ear of wheat from her lips.)