Of course I knew 🙂

Not that Downtown Abbey was going to feature a ‘nudist group’ called Moonella, extant circa 1929, but that, as Time magazine reports, that the Moonella Group was a real thing.

For those not in the know, Downton Abbey is a British TV costume drama, set in the years preceding, and following, World War 1.

It is, as far as I can tell, a class-ridden piece of fluff and nonsense, but as this is what makes for hit TV series, who am I to argue?

Moonella Group is, of course, an SL group I created to produce some free naturist-styled gifts and such like a couple of years ago but I’ve never actually got around to doing anything with.

Perhaps its time has come.

Time, perhaps, to seek to create some historical naturist (or nudist, as it would have been called then) sim set in the 1920s, when nudism was the preserve of bright young outrageous things?

The Moonella Group get mentions here, here and here (the latter link being Downton Abbey specific).

Sadly, there is no inference that Lord and Lady Grantham, stars of ‘Downton Abbey’, are likely to be getting their aristocratic kit off in the TV series, which would be a marvellous advert for naturism in one way, but probably reinforce the ‘weirdness’ element of it by referencing things like callisthenics and balletic dance as was favoured in some early ‘nudist camps’. Odd how the Downton audience would reflexively think of that element of their favourite programme as ‘weird’ while not regarding as weirder still the chasm in class difference, one that still exists in Britain and is, in some ways, growing its way back to 1920s levels of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’.

In the meantime, here’s one or two photos of fey and winsome young ladies and men performing their communal nude exercise in keeping with the spirit of the early naturist pioneers.

nb: not all photos are intended to accurately reflect the 1920s time frame but, instead, the ‘fresh air and exercise’ rituals of early naturists.

And here, in SL, bright young things Amanda (insert double barrelled surname here) and Rupert (insert double barrelled surname here) perform some yoga at Eden Naturopolis, in glorious period sepia photography.

Ella