Not-Actually-Naked Ladies

While there might have been plenty of food to go around at the second annual Naked Ladies Brunch on Dec. 2, there was a disturbing lack of skin.

Being fond of nudity, (see: cover of the Oct. 31 “Liberty Divided” issue), FM was a little perturbed to find the sartorial bonding focused more on the swapping of clothes than the stripping of them. And while there was a roomful of women, and clothes of all shapes and sizes piled into corners, there wasn’t a bare body in sight.

Perhaps it should have been a tip-off that the Harvard Vestis Council was co-hosting. Not to mention the fact that the Naked Ladies’ Web site asked attendees to “clean out your closets” so they could “swap for some new things.”

Alas, our research on the patriarchal construction of “clothes” was useless. But that didn’t seem to throw off the visitors, who came in eager droves to switch their old for new, and who seemed pretty pleased with their findings. “Everyone here has good taste,” said Chen “Jennifer” Ding ’10, who is also a Crimson news writer, as she was trying on a slinky black number.

“There’s food and clothes,” said Kameron A. Collins ’09, an intern at the Harvard College Women’s Center, about the popularity of the event. “It’s a lot better than facing a hangover in the dining hall.” True story. Although we would have liked to see some booty as well.