http://ldsmag.com/church/article/8565?ac=1
When I first saw this article I wondered if we have way to much time on our hands or are we splitting hairs or what to spend time even talking about this?!!! Then I thought back to the time we served in YA Branch and a Temple trip when this subject was brought up.
This was during the time that the girls were wearing "hoodies" to Church along with "flip-flops". Sometimes they'd slip their footwear off while sitting in a class. Sometimes they'd go barefooted to the pulpit to bear their testimonies. They were told it was inappropriate and some responded. It was bothersome to me. And to others.
So we entered the Temple on our assigned day, showed recommends, turned right and entered into dressing rooms. The girls were dressed super casual as if to speed up changing clothes. A Temple worker (or was it the Temple Presidents wife?) came over to the Branch President's wife and me and basically said....These young adult women are not dressed appropriately for the Temple. This is the Lord's house. They need to wear nylons. Not wear flip-flops. Not wear hooded sweatshirts. etc. etc.
I felt embarrassed. also filled with dread that the girls would need to be told and how would they react as they hadn't seemed concerned before about Sunday dress. (not all of them but most of them).
The message was passed on and they upped their Temple dress standards. And they all wore nylons.
As a teen of the 50's (surely the best time in the world to be female!!) we dressed to the nines and loved every minute of it from hats to gloves to jewelry to sweaters to crinolines and on and on. A special rite of passage for all of us was going to the one and only downtown Anchorage department store. We thought it was huge. In reality it wasn't but we felt it was uptown. Northern Commercial. Stacks of Jantzen sweaters with matching sweater socks.
And then the really big step into the adult world, of everything feminine, was going to the lingerie counter and purchasing our very first plain pink satin garter belt and then dream of all dreams....our first pair of nylons!! Sigh. Behind the coiffed, beautifully dressed, manicured hands, saleswoman- were small stacks of boxes, nestled in a special built, many shelves, display case. The sales clerk would ask what color we wanted to see. Running her hand down the inside of our choice, and pulling it up ever so gently up her forearm then we'd see the color.
After we made our mulled over/talked about choice, she would pull the correct box with the size we asked for. These were nylons. 100% non-stretch nylons. Beautifully knit in the shape-of-a-leg hosiery. No leg looked better than wearing that snug taut tailored-to-fit piece of luxury. We took our purchased small flat box with it's tissue wrapped hosiery and headed home. Bliss! We were women! We learned through practice, to hook the thigh high nylons on our garter belts and to keep our seams straight. How we loved our nylons!!
The L'Eggs of today, pulled off of a grocery store shelf and tossed in our grocery cart with the uncooked meat and cold cereal, all Lycra filled and stretchy and saggy and baggy are one long seamless shapeless piece of leg covering. No glamor at all!
well, I'm in the exit lane of my life and this is a memory that my generation enjoyed and had such fun being a part of that era. We felt beautiful, feminine and modest with our gorgeous hosiery and our very high heels! Yes! We would have never gone to the Temple with bare legs! Or Church on Sunday for that matter.
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Two quotes from Church material preparing people to go the Temple.....
Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple
(booklet given to class attendees)
We have been puzzled and a little saddened at times, when attending the temple, to find that some have come to witness marriages or to attend a session in the temple dressed as though they were going to a picnic or an athletic event.
"Lesson 6: Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple," Endowed from on High: Temple Preparation Seminar Teacher’s Manual, (2003)
4. Dress. Plan to dress as you would when attending Sunday meetings. Women should not wear pants to the temple.
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