Briefly Noted

Clothed with Beauty:
A Catholic Philosophy of Dress
by anna kalinowska
os justi, 148 pages, $21.95

Modest is hottest, or so we’ve been told. In her first book, Anna Kalinowska rejects this school of thought and offers the traditional Catholic woman a guide to dress as an art form. The chapter on artistic principles contains the book’s most valuable advice. Kalinowska explains harmony, balance, proportion, rhythm, and emphasis and applies them to women’s dress. The book should have ended there. 

Kalinowska goes on to assign moral and salvific weight to clothing in a way that obscures her aesthetic argument and departs from the teachings of the Catholic faith on which she depends for authority. 

“The astonishing significance of materials in the path to heaven or hell is, in fact, a kind of scandal established by God Himself,” she says when addressing the ontological evils of synthetic fibers and how they form the human soul. “Clinging T-shirts, yoga pants, and jeans . . . deny the presence of [a woman’s] immortal soul,” she writes elsewhere. She seems to disapprove of women wearing pants in general and suggests only skirts and dresses as appropriate clothing. 

These considerations are presented not as matters of taste or prudence but as moral responsibilities. While clothing certainly shapes a woman’s attitude toward herself and may affect how others perceive her, the Church has never endorsed such strict moral guidelines for dress. Kalinowska’s ideas also suffer from poor presentation. Her prose is condescending and muddled with philosophical jargon, long tangents, and anecdotes with little substance. Though she adds aesthetic arguments to the conversation, Kalinowska differs little from the modesty police she sets out to reject.  

To readers who already agree with Kalinowska’s philosophy, Clothed with Beauty offers sound advice on pairing a blouse with a silk skirt. Her preaching is likely to alienate the rest.

—Moira Gleason