NUDIE SUIT
“NUDIE SUIT” is intended to help and protect individuals wanting to participate in situations that require nudity but who are reluctant to expose their own nakedness. NUDIE SUIT presents an external skin; closely & accurately resembling the real body, but providing a barrier/defense against external forces or internal doubts. While NUDIE SUIT can function in any number of situations, it was conceived in response to female stripclub customers who impulsively and unwisely decide to dance and disrobe onstage. NUDIE SUIT is a product/prosthetic to be worn by these girls in order to avoid the inevitable consequences of participating in such an experience.
EVERY Wednesday, or if it was a particularly slow evening at the strip club, amateurs would get on stage, dance around, and, of course, get naked. On Wednesdays, the promise of a $500 prize was the incentive that got these girls on stage. And more often than not, the “amateurs” who competed on Amateur Night were dancers at other clubs, either on the Block or in the county, who wanted to work at Hustler; in addition to getting the cash prize, the winner was awarded with a job. But the girls who would grace the stage on those slow nights, this was a different matter. These actual amateurs would strip for no tangible award. They would get on stage after a night of heavy drinking, of watching hours upon hours of the ‘real’ dancers unashamedly and carelessly bare all and dance for tips. Perhaps the motivation of those customer-dancers was more complex, but it seemed amazingly clear to me that their decision to strip was no more than the result of inebriation paired with the desensitization from being in such an environment.
During my half-year at the Hustler Club, I too experienced that weird internal push/pull telling me to get on stage. Perhaps it was because I had become close with my coworkers over that length of time, and felt comfortable with the managers, bartenders, waitresses, and dancers alike; perhaps (and more likely) it was that I was constantly bombarded with [not images of but] actual live naked women, which created this desire in me. Of course, I had more sense to strip. And, sitting behind my register in the adjoining boutique, I recognized that it was not the possibility of stripping that interested me, but the mere action of dancing onstage. Awkward, shy, and secluded from the rest of the club, I wanted to encourage myself to break through those personal boundaries. The idea of any sort of performing scared the shit out of me, but I wanted to make myself break through that shell. And I realized that this was the reasoning behind the female customers who would strip. They didn’t want to be naked; they wanted the thrill of performing. But once they, or anyone, gets on stage there is no turning back. If you dance, you must strip, if you strip, you must take everything off. No exception.
It was my own desire to engage in performance coupled with the experience of seeing, all too many times, girls get onto the stage (whether on their own or at the encouragement of a friend or manager or a DJ) and laugh and dance around, only to be pressured/forced into revealing everything, that prompted the conception of this garment. I thought many times of dancing on stage, and the knowledge of that impending nakedness always thwarted me (thank god).
But what if we could strip without actually getting naked? What if the customer-dancers could dance onstage and participate and enjoy themselves without having to bare their skin and lose some amount of dignity? Some sort of exterior skin, a prosthetic skin was the solution.
This, the prototypical Nudie Suit, was made specifically to conceal and reveal a generalized body, but specific in it’s color, placement, and sizing to my own body. The suit is not bound to the realm of gentlemen’s clubs, but could be used in any number of possibilities in which nudity is desired but inappropriate or uncomfortable. The below photographs take place within the ideal environment for the NUDIE SUIT: Déjà vu Love Boutique, the dancewear shop located within and affiliated with the Hustler Club. These images provide examples of the hypothetical existence of the garment, in which it is displayed for sale and on the body, demonstrating the wear of the garment.
