Tznua as Couture? Project Runway All Stars Think So

As I've mentioned on the blog before, I'm a big fan of Project Runway. There were many times this All Star Season 2 when a dress or outfit looked to be tznius for a moment (read: it had sleeves) but then either the fabric was sheer, there were cut-outs, or there was no back. Ho hum. Such is life.

But then Episode 11 brought us Couture Week. And, apparently, "couture" means dresses with lots of material, sleeves, and long skirts. Or, at least it did to Emilio and Anthony Ryan.

While I loved Anthony Ryan's dress, his sheer fabric and lack of lining made it, unfortunately, un-tznius.

However, Emilio's tznius dress was a style that many of us who have attended frum weddings are used to seeing, albeit in a fabric that cost €175 per meter. (Since it was a couture challenge, the contestants each had a €3,000 budget for materials. I'm not even going to attempt to estimate what this dress would cost to get custom-made in this fabric by your local seamstress.) But, even though I didn't swoon over his dress, it was pretty and he came in second place in the challenge to Anthony Ryan. Plus, the judges loved it, including Isaac Mizrahi. (You can watch the critique of Emilio's dress from the 24:29 - 25:56 mark of Episode 11.) And, the back of the skirt of Emilio's dress is similar to the back of the skirt of my wedding dress.

Here are the front and back pictures of Emilio's dress:





P.S. Sorry for the long break between posts. The whole pregnancy/having-a-baby/haven't-done-a-whole-lot-of-clothing-shopping-for-myself thing got in the way.