Convention attire

by Honesty 12 Replies latest jw friends

  • Honesty
    Honesty

    Did your parents, spouse or siblings get all in a tizzy about what they were going to wear a couple of weeks or months before the District Convention?

    My ex is a pretty good seamstress (it's in the DNA she inherited from her dad, a famous tailor from Europe who made suits for celebs like S.Stallone, C. Eastwood, etc.) and she would get all excited about what she and my teenaged daughter would be making and wearing to the Convention.

    Field Service was all but forgotten during the weeks leading up to the big 3 day event.

    Meals were hastily thrown together affairs, usually cold sandwiches or Papa John's pizza delivered by young men who couldn't keep their roaming eyes off my daughter.

    If the house got cleaned, my son and I had the honors.

    She and my daughter (home schooled) stayed up until 3 or 4 in the morning until the task of designing, making patterns and tailoring 3 distinct, sexy outfits for each one of them was finished.

    By the time it was all done they were both exhausted and stressed to the max.

    During the entire Convention all they could talk about between themselves was what other sisters were wearing.

    Two days after the Convention they could barely remember anything of what was said from the platform but they could recite in detail which sister in each local congregation was the most fashion conscious and best dressed.

  • Broken Promises
    Broken Promises

    Umm, no, I was lucky to have a new dress for the Sunday.

    Your ex and daughter went, well.... overboard, I guess.

  • Band on the Run
  • Honesty
    Honesty

    "Overboard" is stating it too mildly, BP.

    They were obsessed.

  • Broken Promises
    Broken Promises

    I was trying to be diplomatic, lol.

  • alias
    alias

    Did your parents, spouse or siblings get all in a tizzy about what they were going to wear a couple of weeks or months before the District Convention?

    Not a tizzy, but a moderate excitement. Buying a new outfit for the memorial or an assembly was an occasional special splurge in my family, that in retrospect, I'm grateful for since there's not much else JWs can get excited about or celebrate while Waiting for the End to Comeā„¢. Gotta take the good when it comes.

    alias

  • Morbidzbaby
    Morbidzbaby

    Not really a tizzy, but it was something I looked forward to...it was the only time of the year I got new dresses! Everything else was recycled outfits from previous assemblies and conventions or memorials. A family that I knew when I was a kid used to go all-out. Mom would buy yards and yards of 3 different fabrics and make matching dresses for her and her daughter, and a matching tie for her son for all 3 days. At that point, isn't it cheaper just to buy the clothing? Fabric isn't exactly cheap nowadays, expecially when you figure in having to buy zippers or buttons...

    The last couple of years that I went, I didn't bother though...Wasn't much point. Last year was my final convention, so I didn't get anything new...not even shoes. A few months ago when I was going through my clothing and figuring out what to donate and what to pack, I threw all my meeting clothes in a trash bag and hauled them down to Goodwill. I'm left with one black skirt and one semi-dressy shirt. Just in case I need to dress up for something (which is so rare, it's not even funny).

  • Honesty
    Honesty

    Morbidzbaby says:

    A family that I knew when I was a kid used to go all-out. Mom would buy yards and yards of 3 different fabrics and make matching dresses for her and her daughter, and a matching tie for her son for all 3 days.

    Ex made 3 new ties for my son, too.

    I forgot about that until you mentioned it.

    Each day they matched the outfits my ex and daughter wore.

    He paid hell one day when he didn't check to see what they were going to wear and put on the wrong tie.

    I wonder if we were that family you knew.

  • Deceived
    Deceived

    Oh of course as a female we all like to dress nice at assemblies because that is a social event. Though we aren't supposed to have pride its a natural normal thing even though the JW's try to suppress it.

    As a teenager living in a small town, going to the big city assembly was the event of the year for me. I wanted new clothes and shoes. I didn't get them though. I had to borrow or get hand me downs. My Mom would ask me who was I trying to impress when I wanted something new for the assembly. She got new clothes though. When I was 13 I begged for some new white running shoes for the assembly. They cost about $7 but she wouldn't get them for me because they might impress some boy (not). I got them anyway by going out and collecting bottles in ditches. This was back in the 60's.

    My Mom would not even buy me a bra. She never did buy one for me. She was strange, I guess wearing a bra as a teenager was a sin or something. No talking to her. When I was 12 I sprouted breasts. It was very noticeable and so a special pioneer lady in my congregation gave me 3 of her bras. My Mom had a FIT, but I wore them anyway and she was shamed into letting me by the pioneer sister. I got a lecture even so. When they wore out, I had to go and collect bottles again to buy a new one. I had to buy my own feminine pads also, she wanted to pretend I didn't have such a sinful thing as a period. I am still trying to figure out what that was all about. When I asked her about it about 7 years ago she didn't recall such a thing?? Weird

  • serenitynow!
    serenitynow!

    Deceived, that is weird your mom wouldn't buy your bras. I know what you mean about your mom not being able to recall the weird stuff. My mom pulls that crap on me all the time. When I tell her about specific times she was abusive to me, she claims not to remember.

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