Fashion meets faith

Fashion and faith will come together later this month at the Community Heights Alliance Church in Newton.

The church’s women’s ministry chair Michele Aurand is bringing fashion consultant Shari Braendel for the “Fashion Meets Faith” event from 1 to 5 p.m. April 28.

Aurand said she discovered Braendel at one of her fashion events and was drawn to her right away.

“I like how she interacted with the women,” Aurand said.

Aurand said Braendel helps women dress to their body shape and tells them every one of them is special. She said she put feelers out to the church community to see if women would want Braendel to come to the church and the response was positive. Her message is for all women, ranging from pre-teens to adult women. She said it is great women want to come out and hear what Braendel has to say.

Braendel said she has spoken in Iowa before and loved it, so when the opportunity arose for her to speak in Newton, she said “yes” right away. She said she loves taking the message of fashion to people, which she says is important because Christians focus more on inner beauty and less on outer beauty.

Braendel cited a study completed by Dove which revealed 90 percent of women do not see themselves as beautiful. She said women make up for this by either ignoring how to dress entirely or by dressing provocatively.

Community Heights is always looking for ways to get involved in the community and this is a great way for the community to draw women together, Aurand said.

Braendal’s program is broken up into two sections. The first section is the fashion portion where she teaches women how to interpret and dress for their body style and does a color analysis to see what colors look best on a woman to bring out her natural color and beauty.

The second half of the program is getting to know her story, which includes how long she has been in the fashion industry and how she learned to accept herself for who she is.

Braendel said she was married to a member of the mafia for years and didn’t know it. She was invited to a Bible study group and decided to follow her religious awakening.

“The whole point is to bring people to Christ, but we do it through the avenue of fashion,” Braendel said.

Promotion for the event started two weeks ago and tickets are on sale.

“I think right now we are sitting at about 75 tickets (sold),” Aurand said.

The goal is to sell a couple of hundred tickets, which are $20 in advance and will be $25 at the door. Women are invited to bring their daughters for a ticket price of $10. Bridgehouse Coffee and Farmer’s Wife are selling tickets and people can also go to Community Heights’ website to purchase them.

Contact Samuel Nusbaum at 641-792-3121 ext. 6533 or at snusbaum@newtondailynews.com