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DORNBRACHT the SPIRITof WATER Nude Look
DORNBRACHT the SPIRITof WATER Nude Look
Nude Look
Why we now dress in the nude
Perché adesso ci vestiamo di nudità
Por qué ahora nos vestimos desnudos
SUPERNOVA
Film stills CHBP (this page)
Photography Thomas Popinger (opposite page)
Editor Petra Schmidt
There are some things, which in retrospect cannot be explained all that
easily. In particular, the old question about why man shed his fur. With the
ironic slogan “I’d rather go naked than wear a fur”, a few years ago the
animal protection organization Peta advertised against wearing furs, with
the help of an advertising campaign and naked supermodels.
Along the same lines is one of the latest hypotheses about those circumstances
by which man’s stately fur degenerated to become those offensive body hairs
with which we are blessed today. This hypothesis states that we people began
showing our skin over a million years ago. Our species was so harried by flees,
ticks and lice that we shed our fur for hygienic reasons as it were. From then
on, according to a team of British scientists, it was considered smart and attractive
to display one’s naked skin. Because quite obviously the “naked monkey”
was preferable in the selection of a partner, which might have been the reason
for his triumphal procession across the world.
Nevertheless, a lot has happened since then. In order to protect parts of the
body that had now become vulnerable to heat and cold, clothes were developed
which included an ingenious system of fashions and costumes which is constantly
changed and renewed. Racists use the obvious differences in skin colour
as a means of discrimination. At the same time, naked skin has become a sort
of super mark of attractiveness. Whether for an accountant or a supermodel:
besides a fit and slender body, anyone who strives for social recognition also
needs perfect skin. A huge contrast thus always emerges between the intentional
“natural” look and the well-proportioned artefact into which we have
transformed our bodies.
Really, it was only a matter of time until it became possible also to be seen
naked with a home-made deluxe body out on the street. But now the time has
come. Someone who cannot decide what to wear simply goes naked. The nude
look is the fashion tip for 2010. Never before has the famous plea for economy
in modern design, “less is more”, been taken more seriously than with this
“nude fashion style”. As with architecture, where modern buildings are stripped
of their leaves down to their skeletons, now fashion also presents itself in a
similar way and makes one thing clear: “Underneath our clothes, we are all
naked.” Thus light, chiffon-like fabrics in warm powdery tones, which pass
from tender rosé of the English Tea rose, through champagne tones up to veritable
“pork sausage” colours, both cover and uncover the body and alternate
between garment and openly experienced “nudism”. This new minimalism is
met in particular in the world of show business. Young star Scarlett Johansson
uses the nude look to emphasize her feminine contours and her prim, youthfully
innocent sex appeal, just as the no less attractive actress Angelina Jolie,
who appeared in the new fashion colour at the Cannes Film Festival. Her Versace
evening gown in a subdued pink which was reminiscent of rosy cheeks,
enveloped the body of the famous sex bomb, while at the same time a risqué
slit exposed the well-shaped legs. A bright red colour then highlighted the pouting
lips and formed a conscious counterpoint to the otherwise skilfully colourless
appearance.
No wonder Jolie, who is known for loving to wear black, likes these new tones.
For, like black, white or grey, these powdery beige tones are not real colours,
at least not if they are worn by a fair-skinned American. Instead they demonstrate
the absence of colour, because both dress and its wearer near each other
in colour. What emerges is a skilful interplay between uncovering and covering,
physicality and disembodiment. An interplay, which British actress, Tilda
Swinton, knows all about. The actress, who happily presents herself as androgynous
with her masculine haircuts, consciously produces the dissolving of
inherent forms in a drape of flowing skin-coloured fabrics. She styles herself
to become a fashion icon, by seeming to display at the same time both body
and dress. With this unusual appearance the diva appears as an inaccessible art
being – as an incredible fable figure like the ones we also know from her films.
However, despite all of this modern minimalism, examples of a similar stylish
daring can also be found by looking at history. At the forefront are the chemise
dresses, which emerged around 1800 and which were likewise called “naked
fashion”. Fashion-conscious ladies in the Napoleonic era wore wafer-thin cotton
dresses that were gathered under the bust over skin-coloured underclothes.
At that time the mock nudity dispersed of course not only admiration, but also
outrage and open refusal. But the envious remarks had little effect on fashionconscious
ladies such as Joséphine, wife of Napoleon, and the famous socialite,
Juliette Recamier. Even in cold weather they wore the airy dresses, which were
mostly made of wafer-thin cotton muslin or cambric, and besides common
colds sometimes also caught dangerous pneumonia, afflictions which were
quickly consolidated under the expressive term “muslin illness”. But neither
illness nor scandal could deter the ladies, most of whom were very young, from
the latest fashion. This fashionable form of liberation was clearly very important
to them.
The American sociologist Richard Sennett, who came to fame with his pessimistic
commentary about modernity, naturally views this in a more critical
light. In his theory on the tyranny of intimacy he reaches the conclusion that
before 1750 the general public would have resembled a stage, on which each
protagonist understood how to disguise himself according to status and rank.
The people of that time played parts such as master and servant, according to
his opinion, and would always have been conscious of this staging. But then the
game got serious. The decorative symbols and masks became standardized and
thus freely available. Today, everybody uses this reservoir of symbols for a
personal staging which would be keenly studied and interpreted by his environment.
Every tattoo and every accessory would be considered not merely a
symbol, but a “truthful” expression of the individual. “The more uniform images
of the body became, the more seriously they were taken by people as an
indication of the personality,” Sennett believes.
Italian-born performance artist, Vanessa Beecroft, knows just how seriously.
Ensuing from her own eating disorders, she dedicates her performances to the
prevalent body images. Her performances involving mostly naked women are
reminiscent only at first glance of fashion shoots or catwalk shows. With her
Tableaux Vivants of naked women who are dressed merely with transparent
tights or long boots, rather she takes up the themes of self-destruction, eroticism,
fashion mania and the limitless desire for affirmation and admiration.
She describes her stagings as “minimalist sculptures”, with which not only her
performers undress, but also the spectators. Not because they would have to get
undressed, but because they always become a part of the performed piece, and
must feel unavoidably like a voyeur.
And this is the dilemma with open nakedness. Although we secretly regard
them with interest, we nevertheless feel extremely uneasy in the presence of all
those naked people. But because even the nude look will remain only a short
fashion fad, we should not allow to spoil the fun. It is after all only a game of
“emperor’s new clothes”. And if there was one thing Immanuel Kant knew: “It
is always better, nevertheless, to be a fool in fashion than a fool out of fashion.”
Ci sono cose che poi non si possono più spiegare così facilmente. In particolare
se si tratta della storica domanda sul perché l’uomo ha perso la pelliccia.
Alcuni anni fa, l’organizzazione di protezione degli animali Peta
protestava contro le pellicce con lo slogan ironico “meglio nude che in pelliccia”
e con l’ausilio di una campagna pubblicitaria e di supermodelle
nude.
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