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| Mosaccio, Before and After |
Why the current fascination with clothes, with dressing-up, and fashion? Imagine a time when we had no clothes. In the Old Testament our nakedness was appropriate for the garden of Eden, but in one bite of an apple shame descended with clothing, as Adam and Eve left their first home and joined worldly existence. Garments as sewn fig leaves became the necessary adornment for "going out."
In the most famous painting of the expulsion from paradise, Mosaccio captured the emotions of guilt, loss, and pain.
The church authorities of the Carmelite Order in Florence not satisfied with the artist's use of hands to cover nakedness, ordered fig leaves [symbols of femininity and abundance ].
Throughout the history of fashion a charming dialogue has taken place between naked freedom and clothed civility, both positive virtues-perfect in our "no fault age".
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