Fashion Undressed, Did Jesus Wear a Designer Robe?: The Art of Intercession, #1

By Kathleen Colussy

Kathleen's book has a sweet anointing that is a paradigm shifter. Within this book God seems to be challenging our understanding of "Spirituality" as well as our "ideals" of beauty as our expression of salt and light in the earth. Kathleen prophetic edge challenges the reader and escorts the often too narrow mind into God's thoughts that are not our thoughts and His ways that are so much higher.

 

The reader will be encouraged by her exhortations and personal testimony that give permission to a generation to comprehend and choose to participate in a creative partnership with God to reveal His Beauty on the earth today.   Tammy Riddering, HoP Kalamazoo   2021

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathleen Colussy
• Release date: Apr 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201961312

Kathleen Colussy

About the Author:  Kathleen Colussy Kathleen knew from the age of five that the world of fashion would be her life’s work. She spent the first ten years of her adult career designing luxury handknits under her own label. After a life changing encounter with God, she went on to work for the next 35 years as a college professor equipping and training the next generation of fashion professionals.  She is currently retired but continues to travel, write and speak on the topics of art, faith and fashion. Kathleen is an intercessor with a passion for the nations and has personally traveled and prayer-walked well over 100 nations as she researched and followed the global apparel production process. In addition, she is a skilled fine artist working in a plethora of mediums including oil painting, photography, and the art of making of handmade books.  For the past 49 years she had been married to her childhood sweetheart and is the mother of a married grown daughter and has three fabulous grandchildren.

Book preview

Title

Fashion Undressed, Did Jesus Wear a Designer Robe?

By: Kathleen Colussy

Forward

Kathleen’s book has a sweet anointing that is a paradigm shifter. We see in this book that the Lord seems to be challenging our understanding of Spirituality and Christianity as well as our expression of salt and light in the earth. Kathleen prophetic edge challenges the reader and escorts the often too narrow mind into God’s thoughts that are not our thoughts and His ways that are so much higher.

We are reminded that we are eternally made for Beauty. We believe within this book; the reader will be encouraged by her exhortations and personal testimony that give permission to a generation to comprehend and choose to participate in a creative partnership with the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus’ beauty in the earth today.

Pastor Jeff and Tammy Riddering

HoP  (House of Prayer) Kalamazoo - Radiant City Center and

My Brother’s Keeper Ministries Summer 2021

Chapter 1

Meet the first Couturier

Secret #1:  You were fashioned by God!

The Genesis of Fashion...

"So, God created man in His own image; in the image of God" ... Genesis 1:27 NKJV

Every time I have spoken before groups, bits and pieces from each of these stories I share within this book have dotted my talks. Everything you read represents a compilation of those eternal truths I have taught on for almost 40 years.

As a professor, world traveler and conference speaker, I took note that within most fashion history textbooks they ascribed the names of either Rose Bertin or Charles Fredrick Worth as originators of Haute Couture or high fashion. Clearly, there were other earlier named and unnamed individuals however, none of the textbooks ever noted what is recorded in the book of Genesis, which is the first fashion innovator, was God.

In fact, I believe you will be amazed at the sheer voluminous amount written in the bible in regards to creativity, beauty and fashion. I have merely given you a small sampling as I attempted to give equal weighted coverage of these topics found in both the Old and New Testament of the Bible.

From Genesis to Revelations is God’s story of love, fashion, creativity, beauty and redemption. We see the origins of this love in the book of Genesis.  One of the most precious creations especially designed and made by God was us! 

According to Psalm139:13-14 NKJV for you created my inner most being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  God made each of us to reflect Him. From the very start, God desired fellowship and love from his creation.  Perhaps this explains why God’s love involves choice. He loved us enough to give us the ability to choose to love him.

The greatest choice we have is to return his love for us. Love involves trust. Love meant trusting his way of doing things. Significantly his love gave mankind the opportunity to choose to ignore His ways of how things should work.

The back story to fashion first couturier unfolds within the book of Genesis. The story elaborates on the issue of choices and consequences – often the very same choices that mankind still grapples with today. The story tells of two trees within the garden, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge.

Genesis 3: 1-11, 21 NKJV

"Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?

And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.

Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you?

So he (Adam) said, I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.

And He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?

..."Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them." ( underline and bold emphasis mine)

One must wonder why, even today, does mankind continue to be tempted to hide and avoid God? Like Adam and Eve, many still find themselves grappling with; the choice to acknowledge and obey God or shall they continue to avoid and hide?  It seems the notion of trust, pride, apparel and covering are inexorably linked to what makes man hide from God.

The history of fashion is an ongoing story of clothing that either conceals or reveals our very notions of beauty, modesty and creativity.

Could it be that Adam and Eve’s recognition of being naked was somehow shame based because of their pride and disobedience?  On the surface their fig-leaf feeble attempt may have looked like sustainable green fashion, but it was merely a weak attempt to instead cover up the fact that they placed their trust in something and someone other than God?  I believe what you will discover within the pages of this book are insights to how God actually feels about fashion as well as how He resolves this dilemma. On the outset it must be stated how vital is to recognize that God’s plan all along has been to restore fellowship, trust and beauty to their rightful place in our lives.

It is imperative to know that what is shared on the following pages will be game changing for some of you that have the courage to push past the sometime Christian-ese language to actually hear what God wants to share with you.

I have long reflected on the account of the Apostle Paul’s public meeting on Mars Hill in Athens.  Paul was a master at reading a crowd and knowing his listeners. He made a sincere effort to understand their religious beliefs and cultural world views before he began to speak.  He continually went out of his way to relate and to be relevant without sacrificing the sharing the of life changing truths he had personally experienced in his transforming encounters with God. This book was my attempt to do the same.

Therefore, I trust that God’s Spirit will be my translator just as he did during the Feast of Shavuot also known as Pentecost.

"How is it that we hear each of us in his own native language?" Acts 2:7 -8 NKJV

As you begin to discover what both the Old and New Covenant have to tell us about beauty and fashion, this very passage is my actual prayer for you... that God will be my translator.  Not just that God would literally or magically translate my story into Arabic, Greek, French or whatever native language you speak, although He could, but instead that you as you read you will hear the voice of God in the love language God uses to speak personally to you.

My hope is as you read that you find yourself amazed at how God specifically gives attention to his love for us and for the subjects of beauty and fashion.

While this may be a lot to expect from my humble little book, it is certainly not too much to expect from God!

Within the following chapters I will be sharing with you the fashion back stories I have discovered in the bible. These stories reveal the great lengths God has gone to reach those of us in the fashion industry with the knowledge of His love and purposes for us. You were destined to be a game changer within your sphere of influence. 

Take-Away:

Everything God made was beautiful and purposeful. God fashioned you to reflect his beauty, is it any wonder we appreciate and also desire to create beautiful things?

Chapter 2

My Story  

Secret #2: The Foolishness of Fashion –

The donkey God rode into my life on... was fashion!

"Rejoice greatly O Daughter...Look, your King is coming to you, he is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Zechariah 9:9 NKJV /Matt 21:5

Can you imagine hearing the following question: "So, what do you want something that lasts only one month in popular fashion periodical or do you want to touch eternity?

Seriously I ask you, "How would you answer such a question?" Besides whom do you know actually talks to