The new hot Hasidic look.
The business of fashion rests upon the notion that with every season there is a look that is new and exciting. Of course, there is nothing new under the sun. There are only old ideas dressed up to look new.
Thus, it was inevitable that at some point a designer would look at traditional Hasidic clothing, and decide that this was fashion.
Korean-born Gunhyo Kim, a graduate of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Arts, and an assistant to designer super-star Dries Van Noten, was inspired by Antwerp’s Hasidic Jews community. He takes a traditional arba kanfot, an article of clothing mandated by the Torah, (Num. xv. 37-41 and Deut. xxii. 12) and turns religious garb into, um, something else.
Is it time to give up Levi jeans, Brooks Bros. pink shorts, and LL Bean flannels in favor of Hasidic chic?
Have a look and decide for yourselves.
No self-respecting Hasid would wear a tight, sharkskin gray suit and, horror of horrors, white shoes with an ill-fitting Borsalino. But that’s the whole point of this loony look, mixing the traditional with the avante garde.
The arba kanfot are turned into an item of fashion, and the hat is a witty take on a Hasidicspodek, most notably worn by Gerer Hasidim.
Seraphic Secret confesses to a weakness for the Hasidic shtreimel, a round hat made of fur that can be enormously expensive. We hope that PETA members take one look at this article of clothing and feel their heads explode.
H/T Rachel Lipson
