Nude bras for black women, nude panties for tanned or darker women. I'm sure many of you have hit this wall when typing this into the Google search bar when returned with results that just don't match up. The fashion and the garment industry have coined the term nude when talking about and describing a pale beige type coloured garment, despite what the term nude actually means which is to be "naked".
So When did this distorted view of nude become popularised? Since its inception the catwalk has been a predominantly white feast, the first black women to run on the catwalk in 1950’s was Helen Williams, there were others before her, but none that crossed over into mainstream fashion. Since then we have seen a models such as Naomi Campbell who is seen as the idol black model and more recent catwalk stars such as Jasmine Tookes who have walked the Victoria secret (VS) fashion show. In the fashion world this is monumental but it’s still not where it need to be, only 7 models were black and 2 of Asian descent out of 44 angels in total. Imagine if VS fashion show increased this diversity by just 30% this could create serious waves in the fashion industry and beyond.
Many of you might think that the fashion world may be a too superficial place to start to make positive changes around themes of diversity, racial discrimination and the like, however, we at Nunude believe that it's the small changes in places heightened in the media (such as the fashion industry) that can create significant changes worldwide. The fashion industry is a powerful force that has the ability to create trends, make people change their style seasonally and even fool people into paying ridiculous mark ups on designer brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton. So in the same fashion (excuse the pun) let's apply this same logic to changing people perceptions around race, inclusivity of races and let us use the industry at a tool to create surreptitious change under the noses of all the people that thought ethnic minority's didn't belong on the catwalk, that coined the term nude and in doing so managed to cut out a whole range of people in their description of it.
Although this order of racial inclusivity and change will be something that happens at industry level there are things that we can do to make this process faster so here's how.....
So heres how you can make a difference
1) Don't use the word nude to only describe a light pink beige colour, nude is your skintone not just a Caucasians
2) Share posts like this that celebrate inclusivity and diversity within the fashion industry
3) Support brands that have identified racial exclusivity as a problem there are only a few brands that do this (us being one of em)
