Many of you will have seen the film Calendar Girls, based on a true story, in which some ladies from The Women’s Institute decided they should raise money by printing up a calendar featuring coy nudity. The original aim was to raise enough to buy a sofa for the visitors’ room at a hospice where one of the ladies’ husbands had died. The rest, as they say, is history, and now many people from many walks of life have followed the original idea to raise money for their own causes.

 

(above: Helen Mirren and Celia Imrie in scenes from the original Calendar Girls movie)

Let me raise some points here. One, most of those who appear to participate and produce these calendars are very much middle-class, if one makes some generalisations about the groups producing them. Not that there’s anything remotely wrong with being middle-class, or of any of the charities benefitting, but it’s clear that the charities are very much of a particular social demographic. Two,  for many participants it may be their first experience of communal, outdoor nudity, and in participating we can but hope that there will be those who will enjoy the feeling of being naked outside and may subsequently embrace naturism. Three, as time progresses the calendars become a little more risqué (unless you’re already a naturist!) and the coy nudity of the original calendars has now given way to almost routinely bared bottoms and side-boob. While British reserve maintains a coyness, some calendars from other locations around the globe now feature nipples, not routinely, but they’re there all the same!

 

One fairly constant theme in British calendars of this type is the rural, agricultural setting, and I’ve asked Diane if she’d produce a small series of something similar, that is semi-hidden nudity, in a rural setting. This won’t be for any calendar as such, but a small standalone post (and the photos also published on our Flickr account). What we’d like to do is feature new models. If you’ve never posed nude before for any sort of SL related project, now’s your opportunity!

Please contact Diane if you’d like to take part (and males and females are equally welcome).

We’ve taken some photos of country ‘gal’ Lavinia out in nature, replicating the sort of scene you might typically see in a naked, charity calendar.

If you don’t wish for Diane to take the photos, and prefer to take your own, we’ll certainly accept submissions.

Trine