Fashion: Modesty

Standards of modesty vary by culture and time period; they dictate which parts of the body must be covered and which parts are appropriate to expose. Women’s hem and neck lines fluctuate, allowing more or less of the neck, breast, and leg to be exposed. In some Islamic and Hindu societies, women wear the chador or veils to protect them from having their head or body seen by men who are not related to them. In nineteenth-century Western dress, women covered their entire legs with long dresses; to expose an ankle was inappropriate.