Vogue India's 'Fifty Shades of Nude", A Testament To Nuanced Sisterhood By Bikramjit Bose

Vogue India's 'Fifty Shades of Nude", A Testament To Nuanced Sisterhood By Bikramjit Bose

Vogue India shares a photographic vision of the topic front and center of our fashion industry minds: skin color.

Just now, I found a 2009 AOC short speaking about Padmi Lakshmi, former wife of Salman Rushdie, and a quote from Paula Karaiskos, of Storm Models saying: “The whole discussion about using more ethnic women in fashion has broadened the debate on models in fashion in general and designers are now looking for more discerning faces to front their campaigns.”

In retrospect, I’m not quite sure what Karaiskos meant, given the meaning of ‘discerning’. She meant well.

The Guardian article was focused primarily on the rise of Asian models in fashion. A decade later, AOC remains proud of our heritage and headline: Is the Entrenched Dominance of White Fashion Models Ending? I admit never dreaming it would take nearly a decade to smash through fashion’s white supremacy mentality once and for all. Without social media and the Internet, this breakthrough wouldn’t have happened. Old ways would have prevailed.

Vogue India’s May 2019 issue takes the convo into one of nuance with “Fifty Shades of Nude”, lensed by Bikramjit Bose with styling by Anaita Shroff Adajania. / Hair & makeup by Manaisha