Ordination to the Transitional Diaconate, in the Central Gulf Coast

Friends,

Tomorrow will mark one month as a deacon in the Episcopal Church, and obviously shows how late I am when it comes to updating blogs.  As many of you know, my ordination was the first time I wore clericals, so it was my first opportunity to experiment with clergy fashion.

This is about as close as I get to a full body shot.  This is an Express shirt dress that I purchased from a thrift store in Austin for ~$10.  The only tailoring required was cutting off the original collar and adding in button holes to both the front and back of the collar area.  In some situations, others will need to have the actual size of the collar altered depending on the size of the person's neck.  Thankfully, I'm a size 16, which is the natural neck size on this shirt dress.  If you add in a ~$10-15 tailoring fee, this still only comes out to ~$20-25, which is a steal for a clerical.

As I mentioned in my previous post, while my posts will mostly be about women's clericals, I love to highlight when men go out of the box with their clericals!  This is a picture of +Joseph P. Mathews and I, in our altered clericals.  We have the exact same style shirt on, except mine is obviously longer, because it is a dress.  Both from Express, both tailored to be clericals.  I think he shows how fun it can be, even for men, to try different styles for clericals.

For the ordination, I wore my clerical dress with silver earrings, black tights that end at the ankle, and black wedges.  Right now, this is the only clerical I have, so I wear it differently every week.  As the weather gets cooler, I've enjoyed wearing it with scarves, thicker tights (both black and gray), and various boots.  I also like to use different jackets and sweaters every Sunday.  Also, a requirement: fun earrings.  I love using fun earrings (in various colors, shapes, etc., but almost always big!) to give color to an otherwise very black outfit.

In time, I hope to get other clericals and take pictures when I wear them differently.  I'm really looking forward to it!