Dress is holding artist the wrong way round (4)
I believe the answer is:
sari
'dress' is the definition.
(sari is a kind of dress)
'is holding artist the wrong way round' is the wordplay.
'holding' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'artist' becomes 'RA' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'the wrong way round' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'is' placed around 'ra' is 'iras'.
'iras' back-to-front is 'SARI'.
(Other definitions for sari that I've seen before include "Indian costume" , "Hindu female garment" , "Indian robe" , "Traditional dress of Indian women" , "South Asian garment (variant spelling)" .)