Model, ecologist, activist Zinnia Kumar covers the January 2022 ‘Reset’ issue of Vogue India, wearing 2020 LVMH prize winner Supriya Lele’s “brave clothes that inhabit a delicate view of a new India.” [Note that due to COVID, the 2020 LVMH prize of €300,000 was divided among the 7 finalists in the prestigious competition.” Kate Phelan styles Kumar in images by Daniel Jackson [IG]

The issue is the first with Megha Kapoor as Head of Editorial Content. Garner insights about Kapoor’s vision of Vogue India as a modern evolution at Conde Nast.

She [Kapoor] is focused on "delivering a content experience that moves away from the treatment of India as a monolith, into something that has more of a voice and identity that's more reflective of the world we live in."

Supriya Lele Designer

In the Vogue India cover story, Akanksha Kamath describes Zinnia Kumar as “the perfect muse for British-Indian designer Supriya Lele's brave clothes that inhabit a delicate view of a new India.” Delicate is an understatement for the “sinuous sheer pieces that wrap across the body, revealing hip, bone, curve and crevice. . . “

In choosing the “slinkiest” pieces from her LFW spring/summer 2022 collection, Lele acknowledges their sensuality and focus on the female gaze, but the designer emphasizes that Zinnia Kumar “embodies the essence of what I am trying to say with my brand.”

The designer returns to India twice a year to work with new creatives each time. “What’s happening in India right now is so exciting. There are creatives and artists breaking rules and doing incredible things that aren’t on the global map just yet,” she says, having wrapped up a collaboration with Delhi- based photographer Sohrab Hura for her spring/summer 2022 campaign.

Zinnia Kumar for Vogue India

AOC did a very deep dive on Kumar in her A/W 2020 appearance in the H&M Conscious Exclusive Collection. To make it easy for everyone, we will temporarily move the entire article forward so that it sits next to this one. I reread the post this evening, and we address many of the same softer-approach to environmental issues that was part of the Peng Chang - Steven Meisel from today’s Vogue Taiwan post. We also tracked Kumar back to a Matches Fashion interview on the environment which is very informative.

Zinnia Kumar is passionate about raising our environmental consciousness in the fashion industry. But, she also challenges all of us to take small and deliberate steps, rather than berating people day after day for everything we are doing wrong.

Vogue India shares an article about Kumar, listing key ideas behind her personal platform and also past struggles with anxiety. The activist is definitive that she is driven by a moral compass and wants “to be defined by that value system rather than the illusion of ego and status from titles, of which she has many.” Her dream is to open a combined animal sanctuary and Ayurvedic wellness center under one roof, an idea that sits well with her vision of steady, incremental progress around the environment. Without minimizing the impact of fashion world on our dire environmental situation worldwide, Kumar is very focused on the super harm coming from fossil fuels.

We should all get accustomed to the word “decolonising” because it appears in Kumar’s vocab also. She has been vociferous in her criticism of the negative effects of colourism, especially in visions of ideal beauty in the global South Asian community.

In a third article in the new Vogue India [impressive frankly], Kumar says she comes from a family of diverse skin-tones. Continuing her colourism conversation, the activist says:

I come from North, East and South Indian lineage and have family members with diverse skin tones who were bullied or treated differently. It made me livid when the South Asian community in Australia would say mean things to my cousin, mum and grandmother because they were dark-skinned while giving me preferential treatment because I had lighter skin. The penny finally dropped when a young woman in the community died by suicide after being rejected by multiple male suitors.

OMG! AOC has written more than once about skin lightening creams but this statistic is staggering: the global skin-bleaching market is set to climb from US$8.6 billion to US$13.7 billion by 2025. As long as skin bleaches are sold in any form, capitalistic colourism will exist. The active ingredient in some skin lighteners is mercury, so bleaching can lead to mercury poisoning. Mercury is a toxic agent that can cause serious psychiatric, neurological, and kidney problems.

Doing a quick Google scan, after the death of George Floyd and the BLM protests that followed, there has been some movement around this problem by major companies like L’Oreal and Unilever. Some products are being pulled entirely and in other cases the marketing is being changed drastically, but the product continues. AOC will spend some time updating this “capitalist colourism” problem of skin whitening. Those financial projects into 2025 are just heartbreaking.

Wow. Good job Vogue India. I started the day with Vogue Taiwan and enjoyed great mental stimulation and now find myself in this discussion. Ahem. Maybe these titles will rub off on a certain Vogue closer to home. And I don’t mean British Vogue. ~ Anne