To make or become extremely thin, especially as a result of starvation.
A waif's progress - beauty becomes a collective dream, available to anyone who can afford the clobber or put themselves on the punitive diet, it begins as the possession of a single, quirky individual. It is defined as the most devoutly ideal of human notions, and also the harshest and most heartless.
She is naked on a tropical beach, with a looped shell necklace arranged to cover her nipples and dangle into her groin; though her skin is tanned, not whitely marmoreal, she has the same ripe mouth as the Roman figure, and the same wayward serpentine hair. But she has not lost her lower body, which curves out of the frame - her bare bottom retouched to look curvier - as an enticement to fantasy.
A goddess was carved by the Roman sculptor, entitled Naked Portrait 2002. Today, the divine image is invested in one of those flighty beings we call supermodels. So does the goddess represent the high point of civilisation? Or an auguryof its end?
