I Hate Being Naked. But Attending A Nude Dinner Party Changed How I Feel About My Body

By Anissa Kermiche

As a designer and artist my work has always been centred around the female body – the Love Handles vase I first created in 2019 (which is sculpted in the shape of a bottom) has become my brand’s signature, and I have turned intimate body parts into fun everyday objects, from candle holders to salt and pepper shakers. My work questions the idea of perfection, celebrating diverse body types, with big bums, small bums, big boobs, little boobs. But it wasn’t until I was invited to attend a nude dinner party that I realised I wasn’t at all comfortable with my own naked body.

It came about when Charlie Ann Max, the founder of the Füde Experience (which organises dinner parties with a twist: everyone is naked) asked me to host an event in my studio and to design the table settings for her. It was an obvious fit for my work: my entire brand ethos, just like Füde’s, is about celebrating different body types and womanhood. We could serve canapés in my “Foreplates” (serving plates modelled on naked breasts), elderflower pressé would be poured from my “Jugs Jug” vases, and naked guests would perch on the metal chairs I designed featuring playful swirls that resemble breasts. What a fun and clever way to show off my new homeware line (which I playfully named Amuse Bush), I thought. “And you’ll then stay with us when you’ve finished dressing the table?” Charlie asked in a planning meeting ahead of the event. “Oh no, no!” was my immediate reaction. This was a wonderful thing for other women, but not something I could ever do myself.

I am the type of person who hates getting undressed in the gym, who doesn’t know where to look when women stride towards the showers without a towel, or blow dry their hair with their boobs out. I feel incredibly awkward getting undressed in front of male doctors, and usually request a female gynaecologist. Even getting undressed for massages makes me uncomfortable. Despite making a career out of celebrating the female body, and turning bums and breasts into everyday objects, I had never confronted the fact that I have a problem with my own naked body – and how other women perceive it – until I received this invitation.

The Füde experience in Anissa Kermiche’s studio.

As much as I hated the idea of meeting strangers totally naked, it didn’t feel right to host the event in my space only to leave before the canapés started circulating. So, I reluctantly accepted, then tried to distract myself by obsessively planning the number of anthuriums that would line the tables, and which colours of fabric to drape around the studio. Two days before, I panicked. “I’m really sorry, but I will have to leave when the event starts,” I told Charlie over the phone. “I can’t do this.” She wasn’t at all judgemental or offended. “I promise you, if you stay it won’t be difficult for you,” she said gently. “Trust me.” I didn’t want to disappoint her. “Okay,” I thought. “Come on Anissa, just do it.”

It didn’t help that on the day of the event I was bombarded with text messages from male friends saying things like, “Need an extra waiter?” Phones weren’t allowed during the event, so during the set up, I got a welcome respite from curious friends’ WhatsApps. When I was putting the final touches of foliage on the table, I walked into the kitchen and Charlie and her team members Maya and Yasmin (all of whom had arrived clothed) were already in the nude. I was surprised, but it didn’t feel weird – there was such a sense of sisterhood and trust between them. They didn’t say anything to me and so I didn’t feel any pressure to undress, but I decided to take off my top and bra, measure how I felt, and then see if I would be able to go any further.

The beautiful fabrics for the Füde Experience in Anissa Kermiche’s studio.

Guests mingling at the Füde Experience dinner party.

When I took off my top, we were just looking at one another’s faces – no one was scanning my body. No one was critiquing my boobs or my thighs like I do when I look in the mirror. It was very strange to me how normal it all felt. We were just like, “Oh, pass me the leek,” and “Have we got ice?” After a few more minutes, I took off my trousers. I can’t say I felt the most comfortable at that moment, but I decided to focus on welcoming our guests, instead of on my own body.

It was a ticketed event, so everyone who attended the dinner was aware of and on board with the idea of dining in the nude. I’ve rarely seen so much self-acceptance. I was the only one in the group who wasn’t comfortable, which was ironic because I was the one hosting, welcoming everyone into my space, dotted with the art that I’d collected this year and my beautifully curated tables. I had all the cliché things that supposedly make a person confident, but I was the one having the hardest time.

A closer look at the on-theme table setting curated by Anissa Kermiche.

Anissa stuck to the nourishment theme by lining the table with flowers, fruits and vegetables.

There were all kinds of bodies – shaved, not shaved; bodies with tattoos or plastic surgery; thin, curvy. Everyone was so confident, and it was amazing to witness the self-love these women had clearly been working on for years. I’m sure if we met each other clothed, we wouldn’t have found one another as beautiful as we did. Being in the presence of such self-acceptance made me realise that I am really hard on myself and the way that I look.

As the evening wore on, I discovered that, strangely, I quickly forgot about being naked. You don’t look down when you talk to people – you just look into their faces. We had draped silk fabrics in beautiful skin tones over my showroom. When the women were scattered around the room unclothed it looked like one of the nude Renaissance paintings I have studied in museums. For my work, I have explored the female body extensively in libraries and museums, but I’ve never been so close to so many naked women. Aesthetically, I will never forget how those beautiful bodies looked against those fabrics. The diversity of body shapes is what I have always loved studying, I love the circles and voluptuous shapes. It was heaven to see all these women in my office – I felt like God dropped them there for a day.

Charlie Ann Max, the founder of the Füde Experience.

For me, clothes have always been a way to feel empowered, and a means of self-expression. But meeting these women without any clothes at all was really powerful. It takes courage to strip away those layers: you’re more vulnerable, and so a more authentic part of you comes out – the conversations are instantly that much deeper. The structure of the evening helped encourage this further. The dinner opened with a relaxing breath-work exercise as a group and then the topic of discussion for the table was nourishment. As we dined on our coconut melon soup, braised leeks and plum sorbet, we each spent a couple of minutes explaining to the group what nourishment means to us personally.

I learned that evening that there is a nuanced difference between being nude and naked – I felt nude, but not naked. As Charlie explained to me, we are born nude, and for centuries people lived without or with very few clothes. It’s not actually that abnormal to interact with other humans without so many layers to separate us.

Unlike the sketches and paintings that inspire my own work, looking at these naked bodies in real life touched me on a more personal and spiritual level. Rather than focusing on them as a source of artistic inspiration, it made me address how hard I am on myself. I don’t know how long the impact of those three fascinating hours on the way I see my body will last. But I do know that when I took my bra off in the gym changing room this week, I did it without checking if anyone was looking at me.