Rebel Yell! What If We Put More Clothes On?

Forbidden fruit is something we’re not supposed to taste… but we want to. It’s earthly, it’s tantalising, it might even be sinful. Is it an apple? Or is the apple just an innuendo? 

One can hardly be surprised that this fruit has oftentimes been compared to the female body. Juicy, firmly fleshy, with a silken, shiny skin – it’s mouth-watering, and it can get us into trouble with old-timey Christian morals. 

I see the female figure, almost unclothed and overly posed, everywhere I go.

It is fashion’s job to package the woman in a way that makes her even more delectable. And historically, the so-called fairer sex has been the one to most enjoy tasteful frippery and modish fad. But fashion is failing us. Media, social norms, celebrity culture and the clothing industry have conspired to create a nauseating axis that has saturated our surroundings like an overloaded supermarket aisle. 

I see the female figure, almost unclothed and overly posed, everywhere I go. She is never out of shot. Up and down on public escalators my eyes flicker over endlessly supine forms, repeated with the shoving insistence of propaganda. I am imbibing a million Beyoncés in sequinned bodystockings, a hundred thousand Hailey Biebers in bikinis. I am no more than a fattening duck with a funnel down its neck, no more than a Suffragette with a feeding tube up her nose. Like an abandoned orchard where unpicked apples rain down in a frightening deluge, the stripped human shape is thrust upon me from every direction. Society wants me to see and see it until I choke. 

And so, to match the times, the garb they make for us to wear is garbage. Mini vests of mesh and net, nipple tape, bralets, hotpants. The newest thing is knickers. It’s the final step in the ‘underwear as outerwear’ sequence, and it is supposed to be sexy. Is it?

Is it possible that it is desensitising? That specifically female nakedness has become so ubiquitous that it is boring? And that advertisers and influencers need to plunge to dirtier depths to spark the interest of an inoculated audience? I will bring you scarier conclusions soon. 

In a world of very worldly pleasures where we can reveal, I chose to conceal.

If the forbidden fruit were being served in every eatery in town and displayed boldly piled in each shop window, would you still be hungry for it? Would your hands sweat and your scalp prickle, would you turn at night with thoughts of it? Would you queue in the rain, would you wait hours for it? Would you still respect it?

Because that is what I want. I want veneration. I want my female body – other female bodies – to be admired with tearful, genuflecting reverence. In a world of very worldly pleasures where we can reveal, I chose to conceal. I believe in preserving mystique and playing with suggestion. The teasing of a figure beneath a cleverly draped dress, the rise and arch of body parts outlined but not exhibited. Let’s cover up from head-to-toe and titillate. It’s much more appetising.