Watch out for holier-than-thou fashion police

Have you ever heard the expression, "what you wear is what you are"?

You probably have, but probably only a few have ever taken the statement seriously, while the rest of us wear what feels comfortable at work and during our daily activities.

Journalists, for example, typically have to go to more than one place in a day, pushing, shoving, fighting and elbowing other journalists in an effort to put our precious mini tape recorder as close as possible to the designated interviewee.

That means I have to wear the most comfortable clothes I have, which means a T-shirt and jeans -- the unstated "official" uniform for all journalists on the beat in our beloved hot and humid country.

It's true that I'm not dressed like Clark Kent or Lois Lane of the Superman TV series, although they're both journalists at the Daily Planet.

However, I do have a weakness: I tend to favor tight-fitting, but not skin-tight, shirts that end just above the waistband of my jeans. This means that if I lift up my arms, around two centimeters of my bare midriff is visible, nothing more.

Nobody has ever complained about it, not even my mother, until one day, a woman in an Islamic head scarf and long white tunic came up to me and surprised me by yanking down my skimpy shirt hard.

"For the love of God, the moral values of the Indonesian people are going down the drain because of you and other girls who dress like this," she preached.

I was speechless. My jaw practically hit the floor and I could only stare at this woman, who babbled on about how I would send all Indonesians -- especially the men -- straight to hell for forcing them to look at my indecent attire and causing them to have lewd thoughts.

"If you love God, please stop wearing clothes like this," she practically begged me and my friend, who could barely restrain herself from bursting out laughing.

As the woman walked off, I realized that this was the first fashion criticism I had ever received.

But does this put me in the same league as pop-star Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, who have been named the worst- dressed celebrities of the year?

Maybe that woman was just being nice, acting like a mother criticizing her own daughter's sense of style, but she needs to remember that I am a fully grown woman -- and as far as I can recall, I am no relation of hers.

Apparently, I am not the only one who has experienced this kind of fashion advice.

I read in the latest Newsweek magazine that an Iraqi woman was walking home in Baghdad when three men pulled up beside her and berated her for wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

The 28-year-old married woman told the men that she was a Christian, not a Muslim, but one of them jumped out and tried to rip her shirt off, shouting that everyone must respect Islam by wearing a long tunic and veil as Muslim women should.

Even in Kirkuk, a religiously diverse community in northern Iraq, women have been sprayed with acid for not covering up "properly". I believe Indonesia is far more modern -- and moderate -- than Iraq, and that its people have more tolerance for one another.

And I do hope that people won't judge me by what I wear but by who I am, naive as this may sound. And I can only pray that I won't destroy the morality of Indonesian men by wearing tiny tees that like to ride up a bit.

Maybe I will conduct a wardrobe check at the end of the month, or maybe I will wear a far more exposing T-shirt just to irritate that woman -- I'm sure she'll sense it on her fashion-morality radar and come running.

And when she does, I shall be sure to admonish her -- for who is she to judge when not even my navel is showing. For all of her fashion criticism, I'm still abiding by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's advisory not to expose our belly buttons.

-- Eva C. Komandjaja