What is the Plymouth Brethren dress code?

The PBCC's own "Clothing, hair and fashion" page documents that women "typically wear skirts or dresses" and "usually will wear their hair longer," that they wear headscarves when attending church meetings, and that they wear "an item in their hair," such as "a headband, a ribbon or a clip," the rest of the time¹. The same page records that makeup is applied "minimally and modestly" and that women avoid jewellery apart from wedding rings and watches¹.

The academic record describes the same practice in firmer terms. The Centre for the Critical Analysis of Modern Movements records that Brethren women "will invariably wear modest skirts and shirts as well as either a headscarf or large flower" and "are expected to keep their hair long"². It is a consistent and recognisable pattern of dress that marks members out in public.

The dress code for men is far less visible to outsiders because it reads as ordinary business or casual wear. The PBCC's page documents men's daily dress as "long pants and collared shirts," with ties avoided except where necessary, and records that men are "usually clean-shaven" with "short, neat hairstyles" and no unnatural hair colours¹.

For worship the standard is more uniform. CDAMM records that in assemblies "all male members will wear pressed white shirts and dark trousers on the Lord's Day" and that "beards and facial hair are discouraged"². The PBCC's own account of wedding dress matches this register: men wear "dark trousers and white shirts, without ties," and women a "modest, white wedding dress and a veil"¹.

The head covering rests on the fellowship's reading of scripture. CDAMM notes that the Brethren have long "required that women cover their heads during worship according to their interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:4 to 16," and that women's hair is "worn uncut and hanging loose"².

The specific form of the covering has a datable history. CDAMM attributes "the wearing of head-scarves rather than hats by women in assemblies" to the leadership of James Taylor Junior in the 1950s and 1960s². The scarf, in other words, is not an ancient inheritance but a mid-twentieth-century instruction from the office that the article on who runs the church describes as the single doctrinal authority over the whole fellowship.

The dress code is one of the most immediately visible parts of the fellowship's way of life, and it functions as a marker: a Brethren woman is identifiable in a supermarket queue in a way a Brethren man is not. A 2017 profile in The Herald, describing everyday Brethren life, reported that "girls are also expected to wear skirts and their hair down, with a bow of some sort or hair piece attached," and that women wear headscarves at church services and a ribbon or headband "when out amongst the general public"³.

The rules on appearance sit alongside the technology restrictions, schooling, and separation rules collected on the rules wall, all administered locally but set from the centre². The PBCC's own clothing page and the academic record describe the same thing: a consistent, expected standard of dress across the community¹².