The way we wear a new year…
The Canadian Jewish News
T here was a strict dress code at my high school. And the code was even stricter for me. Students at our all-boys yeshiva had to wear kippahs, of course, but also collared shirts, khakis or dress pants—no jeans al- lowed—and formal shoes (sneakers were for- bidden). I could live with most of that, to be honest: there was plenty of room to play with colours up top, and the style guide didn’t say anything about the bagginess of your khakis, or how low on the hips you could try to keep them (hey, it was the mid-’90s). Besides, it was a massive improvement over the dress code at one of the elementary schools I went to, where collared shirts could only be worn in one of three colours: white, blue and, for some reason, yellow. But there was one high school dress rule I could not, would not, abide by. You always had to have your shirt fully tucked into your pants. To my teenage self, this was the height of fashion faux-pas (again, the mid-‘90s). Tucked-out meant nothing less than freedom, tucked-in was how people like my dad looked when they left for work and synagogue. The tuck was the line for me. It was probably the least-enforced rule of the dress code anyways, far behind the holy triumvirate of collar, crease and sensible shoes. Lots of kids paid little attention to the tuck rule, shuffling down the hallway with their shirt tails flying, daring the principal— the enforcer of the code—to make them tuck it in. Many of them got away with it. And yet, you’d have five untucked guys walking together, and the principal would only notice one of them. Why did he pick on me? It became a bit of a joke among my friends. There might have been a few reasons, but I was actually a pretty good kid—and he definitely wasn’t mean or vindictive. Years later, my mother admitted she had spoken to the principal just before the begin- ning of Grade 9 and told him to notice when my shirt was untucked. That explanation made a lot more sense. After high school, I was ready to bust out. I got obsessed with rare Japanese jeans
Yoni Goldstein CEO and Editor-in-Chief Marc Weisblott
Managing Editor Phoebe Maltz Bovy Senior Editor Ronit Novak Art Director Etery Podolsky Designer Sarah Zahavi Design Associate Lila Sarick News Editor Michael Fraiman Podcast Director Grace Zweig Sales Director Kathy Meitz General Manager
for about a decade. I spent too many hours in online style forums sharing poorly lit pictures of the latest cuts and fabrics from obscure mills, then months trying to track down one of the pairs that made its way to North America. I also got big into hats, which were another no-no in high school. And then, for a bizarre few months, I worked as the editor of a fashion magazine. I don’t generally see many connections between Judaism and fashion. There are lots of Jewish designers, of course, but not much in the way of Jewish design, outside of the Orthodox world. I don’t even know what that would look like, but I’d like someone to try and figure it out. Still, I like to get something new for the High Holidays. It doesn’t have to be big, like a suit or anything—just one item that puts me in the spirit of the season. And prefer- ably that no one else will be wearing. But in the end, it’s often hidden under the season’s must-have accessory for Ashkenazi Jews looking to display a deeper link to the liturgy. And it’s a cotton robe. Now that I think about it, the stark white kittel, in its elegant simplicity, might repre- sent the height of Jewish fashion. It makes you look like an angel. Wearing it, you kind of even feel like one. When I put on this kittel—as I did at my wedding, during the High Holidays and at the Passover seder, and eventually when my time comes to an end—I know something life-changing is about to happen. And the best thing of all? You don’t need to tuck it in. — Yoni Goldstein
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