PEOPLE : Taking It All Off for a Good Cause

“Drop Your Drawers Here,” read a hand-painted sign at the front office.

Beneath were stacks of recycled clothing. At Elysium Fields, a clothing-optional retreat in Topanga Canyon, the nudists were having a clothing drive for L.A. riot victims.

“We’re having a little fun at our own expense,” explained Ed Lange, the rather portly 72-year-old founder/executive director of Elysium Institute. Two men drove up, removed their clothes, tossed them in the pile, then joined the sunbathers.

Lange, a bespectacled, bearded former fashion photographer who calls himself the “elder statesman” of the naturalist/nudist movement, thinks clothes are just dandy--”for decoration and protection, but not for modesty. Modesty comes from within.” This day, expecting company, he was wearing some.

He scanned his domain--eight acres shaded with ash trees, peach trees and, yes, a fig tree. On the tennis court, a clothes-free quartet was playing. Men, women and children strolled the grounds sans clothing or inhibitions.

Lange was pleased that the notion of a clothing drive had caught the media’s fancy. Happy news is always good news. For 25 years, he said, he has waged legal and moral battles with those who would depict Elysium Fields as “Sodom and Gomorrah, a sin bin.”

In truth, he says, nothing racier goes on than body-painting, boogieing in the buff and readings by a “woo-woo guru.”

True, the voyeurs visit occasionally. But, Lange says, “they don’t come a second time.” Too boring.