The Füde Dinner Experience organized by the artist and model Charlie Ann Max. For $88 and after Max first approves applications, guests gather to enjoy, according to the website: “a liberating space that celebrates our purest selves, through plant-based cooking, art, nudity and self -love”.

To put it another way: this is a naked vegetarian dinner. Max began experimenting with nude events in 2020. The dinners were initially invite-only, but then she also gave access to people who had heard about them through Instagram or word of mouth. Every dinner he organized was sold out.

The Füde Dinner Experience has now become a trend around the world and dozens of restaurants, groups and pages have sprung up on Instagram and offer the opportunity to those who wish to have one more experience. In New York alone, there’s “Dinner Party,” “Dinner With Friends,” an Instagram page that hosts dinner parties “to meet new and old friends!” and the “Friend of a Friend Collective,” dinners for four to eight members at a time.

“The appeal of naked dining is different for different people,” Max told The New York Times. “Some want to feel more connected to their bodies, while others want to make new friends.

At the dinner earlier in March, guests stripped as soon as they arrived. There was no dressing room, just a shelf and hangers at one end. The central dining room was warmly lit and draped in cream colored silk sheets. Max said she makes her events look like Renaissance paintings because “it’s very romantic.” The ages of the participants ranged from 20 to 50 years.

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Rosalina Villanueva, 41, said she wanted to reconnect with her body, which changed after the birth of her first child last year.

Catherine Fraccaroli, 21, had reverently stripped but kept her white socks on because she felt more comfortable. She hoped the dinner would help her become more socially confident. “I’m definitely shy sometimes, so something like this really pushes me to open up,” she said.

Füde events are not exclusively for women, but in order for men to participate, they need previous participants to vouch for them. All prospective guests must complete a form explaining why they are interested. The form also asks about any dietary restrictions and whether the candidate has been involved in any incident that could be considered inappropriate or disrespectful during a nude or semi-nude event.

Naked... dinner

Max opened the Füde Instagram account in 2020 as a way to combine her two great loves: cooking and nudity. But it actually started in 2014, when she and her Brooklyn roommates decided to strip down and hang out in their apartment. She had grown up dancing and her relationship with her body had always been exceptional.

She began to experiment more with nudity: going topless to certain bars, throwing parties and receiving guests naked. Now, she says, she’s naked whenever possible.

The first nude event he organized was a painting night in Los Angeles. Max prepared the food and nudity was optional, which was wrong, according to her. As it turns out, nude parties only work if everyone is doing the same thing, being naked.

Füde isn’t profitable yet, but Max hopes it will become a full-time business. Max currently makes her money from modeling and content creation and splits her time between New York and Los Angeles. He also recently completed a plant-based culinary program at the Institute of Culinary Education in Los Angeles.

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