Draperie mouillée

Venus Genetrix (2nd Century BC)

Clinging drapery on the nude figure is the sculptor’s equivalent to the photographer’s wet tee shirt. It is a sensuous device that reveals rather than conceals.

The scantily clad figure is more sexually provocative than the nude. By partially concealing the model’s attributes by what the French call Draperie mouillée the nude form becomes all the more alluring. It is also a device that suggests movement.

The sculptor’s most difficult task is to create in clay or carve in stone the delicate trace of drapery. It is a skill that takes a lifetime to learn, whereas the camera can capture the same in the split-second click of the shutter. However, as the second pictures proves, through the eye of a good photographer and with the aid of a good model, the end result can can be equally as beautiful. 

Model and photographer unknown

This leads me back to my Bare Minimum fashion label together with my work as a painter and sculptor of the female nude. What I am after is suggestion rather than definition: the allurement of the fleeting glimpse. 

For this reason I have decided that decoration must also be kept to a bare minimum. Natural cotton voile offers the perfect foil for dark skin tones. Decoration is superfluous - or at the most, kept as light and loose as the dress itself: a mere hint that does not distract from the silhouette of the body beneath.

Here is the voile alone, draped as true Draperie mouillée.

To allow the silhouette of the figure to be seen, I have cast aside my experiments with bold distracting designs and reverted back to next to nothing at all. 

Bamboo (Detail). Sketched in ink and painted with fabric dye

Seated Nude (Detail). Sketched in ink and coloured with pastel.

Note: My experiments have shown that pastel becomes indelible when applied to cotton voile.

Or it can be calligraphy in the form of poetry, either Shakespeare's or your own.