Chelsea Rippy from American Fork said she used to spend hours in stores sifting though racks of the latest "low cut," "too short" and "see-through" styles. She had money in her wallet to spend, but week after week, she came home empty-handed and frustrated.

She wanted to be modest, but she also wanted to be cute and fashionable.

"I think it is OK to be modest and beautiful at the same time ... but I couldn't find anything to even cover me," she said.

All she needed, she decided, was the right undershirt that would cover everything she didn't want to show off. Then she could wear the current clothing trends on top of her basic tee and not worry about being uncomfortable.

But since no stores were selling such an item, she took matters into her own hands by starting Shade Clothing.

It took a year of creating designs and testing fabrics before her long, cap-sleeve tees and even longer high-cut tank tops were ready for distribution in September 2004.

"I started the project so I would have something to wear, but I soon realized that if I needed it, lots of women needed it, too," she said.

On track to sell $2 million in tank tops and T-shirts by its first anniversary, the American Fork-based company has motivated about five similar organizations, such as LAYERS Clothing in Lehi and Kate's Camisoles in Sandy. It has also left thousands of modest dressers in Utah and other Western states racing to Tupperware-style home parties to buy the needed shirts in multiple colors.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asks women not to wear short shorts or tight pants and to "refrain from wearing off-the-shoulder, low-cut, and other revealing attire," a church-published guide for young people said. So LDS females join with Muslim, Jewish and Christian women of different sects in their quest to find the right clothes in order to cover up in the name of spirituality.

The number of dotcoms peddling modest fashions continues to rise both among Mormon cultures and among other peoples around the country.

Mormons in Utah jumped on the full-coverage prom dress bandwagon years ago with local companies, such as BeautifullyModest.com and LDSprom.com, which sew sleeves and sparkles on basic formal gowns. But more recently, companies are popping up that focus on modest causal wear.

One such company, KneeShorts.com, was started by Draper residents Scott and Carol Askew, who nearly five years ago joked about starting a business. They asked each other what they would sell and how. The next thing they knew, they had finished griping about how Carol could never find knee-length shorts, and they were off looking for manufacturers.

Within a few months, their basement, like Rippy's, was filled with their new niche product, and they were ready to sell KneeShorts online. They started with four men's and four women's styles of shorts that come to the knee.

"When we started the company, we thought we would just sell the shorts online and fill a couple orders a day from the basement," lawyer Scott Askew said.

But orders came in faster than the couple could fill them and several customers demanded a place to try on the attire.

Over the next few years, business grew by nine times, and the company expanded out of the basement and into two brick and mortar stores, one of which is located in Orem on University Parkway.

"We learned fast to just listen to the customers," he said. "They know what they want, and they have all the good ideas."

And what many Utah customers want is more than just long shorts. KneeShorts now carries long camisole tank tops, skirts and capri pants. Rippy said Shade Clothing is also developing new products to give local ladies what they need in order to feel comfortable in everyday clothes.

"Our theme and our goal is to keep women happy and comfortable," Rippy said. "We will never have a full fashion line or anything because our goal is to help make the current fashions more modest, but we will expand into new products other than shirts."

The good news about modest fashion companies crosses cultures and state lines as Internet sales increase in local businesses.

Shade Clothing now takes hundreds of online orders a day and has 27 sales reps who throw parties in people's homes around Utah and the West.

KneeShorts's Internet business has grown by 50 percent this year, and now more than half of its online shoppers do not live in Utah and are not members of the LDS Church. Askew said the company does especially well in Bible Belt Southern states and across the Sun Belt, where extreme heat creates shorts weather almost all year.

"LDS people tend to think we are the only ones who have certain values," Askew said. "But many people share our values. They want to dress conservatively and modestly."

A Christian woman from the South recently called up KneeShorts and ordered $250 worth of knee-length denim and khaki shorts.

"She was just thrilled," he said. "She said, 'I only like to wear shorts that are long, and I can never find then.' She was very gracious."

Despite the growth of Mormon modest fashion and its influence around the nation, if you search for "modest clothes" on most Internet search engines, you do not get a list of stores in Utah. You also do not get a picture of Mormons in long camisoles or a written statement of modesty as believed by members of the LDS Church.

Instead you first get links to multiple Web sites at which Muslim and Orthodox Jewish women can buy ankle-length skirts, long-sleeved shirts or scarfs to cover their heads.

Modestclothing.com is owned by a Jewish clothing store in Israel and Modestclothes.com is owned by Dara Becker, a Muslim from Minnesota, who ran into the same problems as Rippy and Carol Askew when it came to finding appropriate clothing.

When Becker converted to Islam from Christianity in 1998, she had no idea where to find modest clothing and head wraps to cover her head during daily prayer. Becker eventually bought her new wardrobe at online stores. She said she kind of became obsessed with looking for Muslim clothing companies online, and when she had found nearly 40 sites, she decided to share her list with other women.

She started Modestclothes.com as a directory of Muslim fashion outlets, but soon expanded her scope to help Mormons and people in other religious cultures find clothes.

"I started finding modest clothing for many different faiths and cultures," she said. "I figured all modest women, no matter what religion, were struggling like me."

Modestclothes.com now has directories of modest and specialty clothing companies for many creeds and cultures, including, as it says on the site, "Latter day."

"Because I used to be a Christian, I just feel a kinship to Christian women who want to dress modestly," she said. "I just started looking up links for them, too. I have a lot of links now for Utah."

KneeShorts and Modest By Design, a Murray company, are among the "Latter Day" links on her site.

She said she hopes having the links side by side will give all religious women a sense that, despite discrepancies in theology and a lot of misunderstanding about each other, they are not that different.

"We want to be modest," she said. "We want to have strong homes and raise good children. ... When it comes to our everyday lives, we are the same."

Shade Clothing also has a way of bringing women of all varieties together. Rose Anderson from Washington said she wears a Shade shirt every day. She is not LDS but said she values being covered up and cute at the same time. She said a few of her friends and neighbors have also started wearing Shade camisoles and baby tees.

Modesty is not always religious, which is why Rippy tries not to segregate her customers.

"All women have parts of their bodies they do not love," said the Shade creator and mother of two. "It is not always about spiritual modesty. Sometimes it is just about covering up and feeling comfortable and confident knowing your problem areas aren't popping out."

Stacy Nehring, from Provo, recently held her first Shade party. Her aunt invited her to a party in March, and she was on the waiting list for three months before she could have one in her apartment for her neighbors. She, like Anderson, has made Shade shirts a daily accessory.

"I feel almost naked without them," she said. "They give me peace of mind, ... I want my friends and everyone to have that, too."

Jill Fellow can be reached at 344-2553 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Web sites for those interested in ordering modest clothing online:

Long Undershirts and Camisoles

www.shadeclothing.com

www.layersclothing.com

www.katescamisoles.com

www.dressmodestly.com

www.modbeclothing.com

www.missionarymall.com

Modest Casual Attire

www.kneeshorts.com

www.greatlengths.com

www.modestbydesign.com

www.mywifescloset.com

Online directories for modest fashion

www.modestclothes.com

www.modestprom.com