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[Moksha]

Dressmaker helps Mormons look modern but modest (12/27/08)

By Jaimee Rose, The Arizona Republic

PHOENIX (AP, 12/27/08) — Mormons hate talking about their underwear.

They're as uncomfortable talking about their underwear as they are wearing their underwear.

A symbol of their faith, the to-the-knee, sleeved underwear is bunchy and billowy and decidedly not modern.

But eventually it must be discussed because they don the church-designed underwear every day. And while they sleep. And on special occasions — even on their wedding day. And to the anguish of Mormon brides, most wedding dresses don't come with sleeves.

Suzanne Novak watches the brides as they sift through the racks of silk and chiffon in her Gilbert bridal shop, their hope dwindling as they try on dress after impossible dress. She watches them fall in love with ivory strapless lace, with sleeveless satin and rhinestones, with spaghetti straps of all sorts, some crafted entirely out of beads.

Novak, owner of Suzanne's Bridal Boutique, sees the corners of their mouths drop when they find the small rack of dresses they can wear tucked away in the back of her shop: high-necked, high-backed, sleeves to the elbows. Dowdy and Matronly Row, Novak says. The dresses all look alike, very '80s prom, deeply Cinderella chic.

But brides today don't want to look like Cinderella, Novak says. They want to look like Heidi Klum.

``I'll fix it, honey,'' she promises the brides who prance about the store wearing strapless gowns, desperately twining stray sashes around their arms. ``We can fix it.''

Novak is the sleeve goddess of Gilbert. Her name is whispered among Mormon brides as a miracle worker, a seamstress divine, who can conjure fabric from the ether and turn a trendy strapless dress into a gown both modern and Mormon-approved. She sews sleeves on almost 200 wedding dresses a year, about a third of the dresses she sells.

She sits in the back room of her sunny Gilbert shop for up to 14 hours a day, sewing barefoot, a collection of pens stuck through the graying dark bun piled on top of her head.

She is 56 and Hawaiian. As a Christian, Novak has never worn Mormon underwear, but she has the contours down pat. The sleeves on women's underwear measure 5 inches from the tip of the collarbone down the arm, the lace-trimmed V-neck hits just at the top of the dÈcolletage and the shorts go to the knee.

The underwear comes in fabrics such as cotton, nylon and polyester. Some, Novak says, work better than others.

She admires their dedication to their faith and the underwear that it implies.

``They know they have to deal with it,'' Novak says, ``and they do.''

The ``garments,'' as they call the underwear, are among the most sacred traditions held by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. When faithful church members reach adulthood, they are eligible to attend Mormon temples, a building separate from regular church meeting houses. Inside, weddings and other sacred covenants take place. After members attend the temple for the first time, the underwear is worn every day as a reminder of the covenants made within.

The underwear hasn't evolved much in silhouette since 1979, but wedding dresses have.

The '80s were good to Mormon brides: the days of puffed sleeves, Dallas and Princess Diana. The '90s were harder, when less became more, when Vera Wang and Calvin Klein put lace and beads upon skewers, and brides wanted the slinky sleeveless gown of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy.

Now, the bridal trends are just plain Mormon torture: strapless, sleeveless, backless, cut-to-there, even see-through tummies.

Novak thinks about this a lot. She calls manufacturers and begs them to stop sending such Disney-like dresses.

``No one wants 'em. Just because you want to be modest and covered up doesn't mean you want dowdy and matronly,'' Novak says. ``They want to look pretty.''

Sometimes, Novak daydreams about designing her own line of Mormon-friendly gowns: pre-sleeved, but glamorous, too. There's a market for it: More than 361,800 Mormons live in Arizona.

At Emily Streeter's last fitting, she's wearing a lacy strapless gown that Novak nipped into a mermaid style to show off Streeter's tiny physique. The dress started strapless but now boasts sequined lace sleeves, a high Victorian collar and a long row of tiny buttons down the back.

``I feel magic,'' says Streeter, 22, of Tempe.

Novak beams.

``Suzanne reminds me of, like, an aunt — an aunt that takes care of you,'' Streeter says.

[Berean]

Thanks, I could have used her for my gown, even though I was not temple ready at the time.

[Guest somemei]

I recently heard a story from Stephen Glenn about a famous research scientist who had made several very important medical breakthroughs. He was being interviewed by a newspaper reporter who asked him why he thought he was able to be so much more creative than the average person. What set him so far apart from others?

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