I used to wear a lot of black (goth teenage stage)… then I stopped (hippy university stage)… then I wore almost all black and dark colours (embracing the norm of my Israeli neighbourhood which wasn’t really healthy)… then all bright colours (made aliyah)… and so the cycle continues.  My relationship with black has always been conflicted; it is the dress code of concerts in the music world, and I always wasn’t a fan of that – though it DOES work in terms of looking sophisticated and not distracting from the music.  I actually do find that it can look beautiful on me, as long as it’s not a norm, because it doesn’t always work well with my skin – I do find it very easy to slip into wearing it too much for my personality and features.  Sometimes when I wear it now, I almost feel rebellious.  ANYWAY – here is the tichel I wore!  I was going for sophisticated and simple:

And then I decided to experiment and add some more pins!  Not sure if I’m convinced by this idea… but I’m gonna work on tweaking it!  I was trying to go for a flower bouquet look… maybe it will work with differing styles of pins?  Let me know what you think!

I’m so happy for you to meet our latest Lady Wrap Star, Helen!  She is just so awesome!  I actually don’t know her personally but after reading what she wrote and sharing in her head covering happiness I want to hop on the next bus to Manhattan and get to meet her!

Tichel Talk
Helen Shere

My name is Helen Shere, and I reside in Manhattan with my husband. I’m currently in my first year of a doctoral program in biomedical sciences. My concentration is in cancer biology; I spend half the day in class and the other half in lab, doing research.

I began covering my hair full-time the day after I married my best friend. It’s actually kind of funny—I hadn’t planned on covering full-time at all. I wasn’t raised Orthodox (I became a ba’alat teshuvah, a returnee to observant Judaism, in high school), and I always thought to myself, “Well, I went from doing nothing to keeping kosher and keeping Shabbat…I think HaShem (G-D) and I are doing pretty good here. I don’t really need to cover.” But, the first Sheva Bracha after our wedding was in a community in which the norm is for women to cover full-time, and I thought it would be appropriate to cover for that occasion out of respect for our hosts, who had gone to much trouble to make the event. So I bought a dress and a tichel to match it.

I remember getting ready to go to the Sheva Bracha and wrapping for the first time. As I wrapped, I remembered how I had heard from married friends that hair covering was a “hard” mitzvah (commandment). I waited for it to become “hard.” Looking back, I’m not sure what I expected to happen. I suppose that I was waiting for the “difficulty” of the mitzvah to suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks, but when I was done wrapping my tichel and looked in the mirror, I only saw myself…as a regal-looking woman who was publicly showing her connection to her husband and to HaShem. I’ve been covering every day since then, and have yet to find it burdensome.

I love wearing tichels! I cover with them nearly 100% of the time. I bought a sheitel (wig) after caving to the pressure of questions like, “But what will you wear to weddings?” but I’ve worn it less than 10 times in the eight months I’ve been married (and yes, I’ve worn tichels to weddings and gotten nothing but complements). I love playing with the colors and textures of scarves, and I appreciate the jolt of creativity it gives me in the morning when I pick out that day’s wrap.

On a practical note, working in a laboratory means that my hair has to be back in a ponytail or bun; tichels take care of that without looking dowdy. Also, before I was married, wearing my hair up/back was the norm for me, so I’m most comfortable with a head covering that allows me to wear my hair underneath it in a familiar style.

I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback from my class- and lab-mates about my hair covering. I often give impromptu tutorials in the bathroom after class to classmates who are curious about how I wrapped that day’s tichel. Fun fact: I figured out which wrap styles and colors look best on me because one of the cashiers in my school’s cafeteria has made it her unofficial job to point them out to me! She’ll tell me, “That one I like. The one yesterday, not so much. You should wear more pink. ” She’s hilarious!

All Photography credit goes to: Rachel A. Minkoff!

I just had to share my pre-tied look.  Black.  Chains.  Pirate?!  Ladies… this is a rarity!  Nothing against pretieds… I just don’t wear them!  Today while taking photos of the store’s new products (launches on Wednesday… ahhh!) I slipped on this old pretied and found myself wearing it for the rest of the day!  It actually looks pretty cool paired with the hoop earrings, don’t you think?  And it’s black (still can’t wrap my head around that)!  Who woulda thunk it?

I have been wearing versions of this wrap with this dress for months, and never got to snap a photo until now!  Isn’t it amazing what a pin can do to the ends of a scarf?  Loving this new trick!  (I’m wearing a silk square scarf, a long burgundy sash, and a flower pin.)

And the dress?  Of course it’s vintage and covers everything that I want covered!  It was such a happy moment to find this beautiful creation, and I love wearing it!  It’s flattering, flowy, feminine, colourful, and just makes me very grateful to be alive!  Do you have anything in your wardrobe that helps bring out this part of you?  Would love to hear about it!

Love, Andrea