Cool, stylish and ... modest

I'm intrigued by Mogue:  a new website with a strapline that reads “Modesty,  A virtue whose time has surely come”

Modest, fashionable and attractive...

The editors describe the site as "a semi professional blogazine that puts modesty in Vogue. Mogue influentially bridges the gap between fashion and culture. Mogue influences education and awareness, confidence and substance in one’s self. ...From knee lengths to ultra flowing to short sleeves to long sleeves to hair to headwraps to sunglasses to shoes, Mogue has it covered.  Literally.
     

“The secret parts of your body that are meant to be kept secret are kept secret. The opposite is not frumpingness [sic],  but we can still be on trend."

I have to admit that I was expecting Mormon-style prairie dresses and headscarves, but "Mogue" does a great job of digging out fresh, fashionable, and quirky clothes from both the high street and designers. It also highlights modest wear on the catwalk - there's more of it than you'd imagine.

...on the other hand, this might be modest, but it's just not a good look

I think having a modest wedding fashion section  could be a real winner, as many women find it difficult to find a modest yet beautiful wedding dress. When Mr AE and I married I had no end of trouble finding an affordable modest wedding dress:  in the end I bought a short-sleeved dress and had it re-made to have long, elegant sleeves. It was lovely but I would have preferred to have had a choice of ready-to-wear dresses that weren't revealing. I was disappointed in Mogue's offering : unfortunately all of the wedding dresses in the "Mogue Bridal Atalier" are really cleavage-revealing: I'm not sure which bit of "modest" the designer didn't understand.


But there's lots more to Mogue than bridal wear: they scour the global catwalks in search of modest fashion trends. One unexpected factoid I came across is that Russian haute-couture is, as a rule, astonishingly modest by fashionista standards, as well as interesting, classic and innovative. The pictures I saw did not match up to my preconceived notions of "Russian" and "fashion".  Having seen the photos, I want some!

Russian fashion manages to be stylish and modest

On balance, I think this site is worth keeping an eye on. It's interestingly counter-cultural and I wonder whether the concept of modest fashion that's actually fashionable might have a chance of catching on.