When will the beauty and fashion industry truly represent all skin colours?

Fashion and beauty reflect the culture we are living in, and change hasn’t happened quickly enough, writes Harriet Hall

Catering for everyone in beauty and fashion isn’t frivolous, it’s a fundamental sign of equality (Getty/iStock)

As a white woman, I can Google “nude shoes”, “flesh-coloured underwear” or “skin-coloured tights” and be met with pages and pages of options. I can walk into a make-up shop and leave with a hand covered in varying stripes of foundation, each one an almost-perfect match to my skin tone. I can find a bra that will virtually disappear under a sheer shirt.

The fashion and beauty industries have conditioned us to consider nude, skin-coloured or flesh to mean Caucasian – in whatever variation of white skin that may be. This discrimination has been increasingly taken on in recent years, as our awareness of just how much of our lives are buoyed by subconscious bias increases.

There has been an overdue awakening among some brands, which have made moves to right such wrongs by releasing a wider range of make-up shades and nude shoes and underwear in an increasing variety of skin tones.

Of course, simply adding a few shades to a range here and there as a virtue-signalling marketing ploy isn’t enough. This week, one Marks and Spencer shopper found that, when shopping for a nude bra online, the underwear in white skin shades was named after delicious desserts, while the one shade on offer for black skin was given the description “Tobacco”. Marks and Spencer swiftly replied to the shopper’s complaint, admitting: “We have more to do and more to learn.”

They’re not wrong – the whole industry does.

As a lifestyle editor, part of my job is to cover the developments of the fashion and beauty industries. Beyond product recommendations and trend reports, this involves analysing change – or lack thereof. Fashion and beauty reflect the culture we are living in, and change hasn’t happened quickly enough.

But as more attention has finally fallen on the Black Lives Matter movement and many other types of racial inequality, brands can’t get away with these thoughtless slip-ups anymore. Not only that: in the biggest recession in UK history, they simply can’t afford to. Perhaps economic uncertainty will finally force brands to cater for the people who shop with them. Because catering for everyone in beauty and fashion isn’t frivolous, it’s a fundamental sign of equality.

Yours,

Harriet Hall

Lifestyle editor