"For civilization to progress from the sensual to the visual, the sensuality of clothes has to be removed to reveal the formal outline, the visual proportion, of the functional body.

But the body cannot be completely naked as that would be to return to the very realm of the sensual that has been abandoned. There is a need for some kind of screen that remodels the body as formal proportion rather than sensual animal, a veil with neither the sensuality of decoration nor the sensuality of the body. The whitewash is inserted between two threats in order to transform the body into form. Folklore begins with "man naked, dressing himself." The modern suit is not naked. On the contrary, purification results in the well-cut suit".

-- Mark Wigley