What Women Wear

What Women Wear: Deborah Blausten

Deborah Blausten works for the Movement for Reform Judaism as a Jeneration Fieldworker (Jeneration is their student and young adult department). She is currently on a Sabbatical from Med School but she has rabbinic aspirations. She loves teaching and does a lot of freelance education. In her spare time she tweets (@DebzyBee), sleeps and shops!

What do you wear to work?

I work in a place where I can express myself through my clothing, which I love! No-one bats an eyelid when I turn up in a maxi skirt and lots of necklaces one day and a mini skirt the next day.My most recent fashion stress was whether my tallit and dress matched for a service I was leading on Rosh Hashannah (Jewish New Year). 

Is fashion important to you?

Very. More like playing with fabrics and prints and the self expression of it – rather than the

what everyone is wearing which is why I prefer catwalk and young designers over high street trends. The way I dress is big part of who I am. People now only laugh a bit when they see I have a Talmud and a Vogue on my desk.

When buying an item of clothing what are your main considerations?

Print, then Fabric, then Cut.

What is your favourite item of clothing and why?

I have a failsafe dress – I got it in Urban Outfitters a few years ago in New York. I wore it to New York Fashion Week last year, I can wear it to Synagogue and I can wear it to the pub.

Who is the woman you admire most from past or present?

I am one of those feminists who always gets told off for having lots of male role models. I grew up with a lot of inspiring women around me so I never felt like I needed to idolise Britney Spears. I do think Caitlin Moran is the best thing ever – she is a modern woman and she's laugh-out-loud funny, gloriously (but somehow stilishly) vulgar and so down to earth. She started conversations between me and my friends about things that we would never have properly talked about otherwise.

Otherwise, I guess my Grandma – she is in her late 80s and still a GP! Her, or Ruth Bader-Ginsburg!