Thanks so much for your follow up comment. You ask great questions!

I absolutely do not believe that it’s wrong to be pretty. It is feminine to be pretty, and God clearly wants women to look feminine (otherwise, He wouldn’t have written Deuteronomy 22:5). We don’t want to get overly concerned with our physical appearance, of course (that would be showy, not modest), but looking clean, sweet, and pretty seems to me to be an excellent goal.

I honestly can’t tell you whether or not your clothes are modest because I don’t know how you look in them. For that you’ll need wise, godly counsel from someone who can actually evaluate you physically (preferably someone who’s been married for a while, so she has some experience with how men think). Questions to ask are, “Do I look pretty and sweet, or do I look hot?” Where does this outfit draw your eye: my face, or someplace else?” “Do these clothes overly accentuate anything sexual?” You can ask yourself those same questions when you’re getting dressed.

I hope this helps a little. Modesty is so difficult because it isn’t cut and dried. Every woman’s body is different, and every garment is just a bit different in cut and fabric, so all but the most general rules are just about useless.

Modesty starts out as a condition of the heart. It is lived out every day in constant evaluation and re-evaluation of both our dress and behavior as we seek to help keep people’s focus on the Lord, and not on us.

A couple of other posts that I’ve written on this topic that you might enjoy are:
Cooking Chicken for Your 600 Pound Uncle, or “Do You Wear Skirts All the Time?”
The Spanish Dancer and the Duck

The final self-examination has to be of our heart. You can be covered as well as a nun and still act like a harlot. You can package it up in pretty paper, but it can still be trash inside.

You can’t always tell when you’re being mentally undressed (in fact, I’d wager that you usually can’t), but this guy was over the top. He insisted on standing 10 inches away at all times, even when I moved. He kept staring at me, keeping up inane small talk, that kind of thing.

And yes, there are a lot of guys who mentally undress everyone, or nearly everyone, even some Christian guys. I personally know some who are recovering from lust as a lifestyle, and some who are still confused about it and are thinking it probably isn’t wrong. Understanding their stories is one of the reasons I’m so passionate about helping men who are struggling.