Living in a country with a relatively single skin color, we are always curious about the lifestyle of people with different skin tones. Black people do not want to whiten, black people do not use sunscreen, and the sand sculpture problem that I have brushed countless times:
"Do negroes call black stockings flesh-colored?"
When I first saw this question, my little head was filled with great doubt. But as similar questions kept repeating themselves in my life, and as I watched them confuse successive new forces, I finally realized that we, who were also human beings, knew nothing about the state of life of our sisters living on the other side of the earth.
You see, even in this era when the Internet is so developed, a related question that has been viewed more than 200,000 times still has few answers.
Interestingly, the problem also begins with the pursuit of "truth," but people tend to ignore the fact that it is a real problem when they approach the truth. The discussion always ended abruptly in a burst of joy.
Come to think of it, although the "black/flesh color controversy over black stockings" is a long-standing "classic question", it doesn't seem to be difficult if we really want to come to a definite, unique conclusion – just ask the black girls, or the inhabitants of multi-racial countries, it's easy to get the answer, isn't it?
Eh, not really.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > whose flesh color</h1>
Things are not as simple as they seem.
Even in the United States, the representative of many ethnic countries, their understanding of this issue is advancing dialectically.
In May 2010, the Obamas hosted a state dinner at the White House to welcome visiting Indian prime ministers. The state dinner went well, but subsequent reports went into trouble — the Associated Press, describing Michelle Obama's evening gown, quoted the costume designer as "[it's a] sterling silver sequin, abstract floral, flesh-colored nude strapless gown."
When the sensitive American people looked at the picture, some laughed, and some exploded↓
The "flesh-colored off-the-shoulder gown"
A newspaper wrote in a column: "Whose flesh is this?" Not her flesh anyway. ”
So a decade ago, there was a month-long social debate in the United States about whether it should be called flesh color, and many well-known designers at the time participated.
Gale Epstein, founder of lingerie brand Hanky Panky, said: "The color of the flesh we are talking about now should not be any particular color, which is politically incorrect. ”
Francisco Costa, Calvin Klein's female creative director, said the CK family's color description must be more specific than "flesh color.". Because: "If this ambiguous label appears on a fashion show, I am afraid it will become a guessing game for people in the fashion industry."
The discussion ended in the end with the Associated Press changing the "flesh color" to the "champagne color" hastily.
But in fact, change doesn't start happening at this time. During the American civil rights movement in the 1960s, many companies spontaneously implemented "discoloration" reforms to their products. More representative, such as the famous color pen company Crayola at that time changed its "flesh-colored" crayons to "pink"; Merriam-Webster Dictionary, at the request of the online petition, also changed the original dictionary "Nude" (nude) for "color with white skin" interpretation.
Original: "The Color of White Skin"
New version: "Color consistent with the wearer's skin tone" // Flesh color / Nude pantyhose // Nude lipstick
Things are changing, but for non-white residents living in multi-racial countries, this level of change is still a drop in the bucket.
In many European and American fashion magazine articles, it is often seen that some non-white editors will complain about their embarrassing experience when buying intimate clothing.
"Whenever I go to the store to buy 'flesh-colored' items, I always get frustrated," said Nina Bahadur, author of fashion forum Racked:
"Because all the 'flesh-colored' labels there actually refer to specific pink and light beige, which is the skin color of some white people. I'm of mixed race, so this skin tone description is completely inappropriate for me (or most people on the planet). ”
We can't put racism on clothing manufacturers because of these "imperceptible" offenses, but it is undeniable that this description will make "some people" feel awkward, and it is indeed a fact that has always existed.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > "spread pancakes"</h1>
Finding his own "flesh color" affects more than just mood for Eric Underwood, a black actor at the Royal Ballet.
Eric Underwood
Ballet performances often required flesh-colored shoes, but in the related stores, his options were only beige and pink.
To that end, Eric had to take out dark makeup that matched his skin tone every time he went on stage, and take a brush to fully color his shoes — a process known in ballet circles as "Pancaking."
"Pancakes usually take more than an hour and a half, and I have to go back and forth a few more times during breaks because the color will continue to fade during the performance." Eric said.
The tedious extra preparations caused him to suffer during his italian tour. Without carrying enough makeup, Eric had to endure the heat while sticking to the DIY "flesh-colored" dancing shoes for four days — and at the same time, for other white professional ballet dancers, the shoes could be a consumable that could be thrown away once.
Eric, who put on his makeup-coated dancing shoes on the INS, poured out his dissatisfaction
Black ballet dancer Cira Robinson shared the same problem.
When Silas moved from the United States to The United Kingdom more than 10 years ago, she was the only dark-skinned female ballet dancer there.
Cira Robinson
"The country has changed a lot in 10 years, and in the dance world now, I don't have to feel shy and unnatural about the color of my skin." In an interview with ITV News, Silas happily described the changing times. But it also tells the story of the trouble the black dancer has been facing:
"For people like me, it's hard to find the right color on the market."
So, as if inevitably, Silas had also pinned her hopes on the "Pancaking" eric mentioned above— that is, coloring shoes with cosmetics.
"Pancaking"
"I'd go to the cheapest cosmetics store and buy foundation," she says, the kind of foundation you'll never use on your face because it's going to make you get acne on your face." It's cheap, about $2.95. ”
Every week, Syrah uses five tubes of this foundation.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Eric Brown</h1>
Fortunately, change is still ongoing.
When the black dancers stood on the higher stage through their own efforts, the world finally noticed their voices.
A few months after Eric complained about his experience at INS, Bloch, a well-known brand of ballet supplies, approached Eric, who collaborated to launch what they called the world's first pair of "black flesh-colored ballet shoes." This color is called "Eric Brown".
Eric wears his "Eric Brown"
As for Sila Robinson, on a day when a "pancake stall" stall reached numbness, she approached Freed (a famous ballet shoe maker) and asked, "What does it take to get a pair of brown shoes?" ”
Soon, Freed became the first manufacturer in the UK to introduce bronze and brown ballet shoes.
Dark fabrics from the Freed production hall
Under the demonstration effect of these big brands, the bits and pieces of change finally snowballed the existing traditions of the entire dance products. Noting that many manufacturers in this market have begun to add corresponding dark styles according to their own user situations, more targeted new clothing brands and service providers are also emerging.
Founded in 2016, FleshTone is a company that specializes in solving dance supplies solutions for people of color
Silas believes that this is the inevitable development of the times:
"I know that every ballet company in The UK now has black or mixed-race girls, and there are enough non-white dancers in the world to prove that a variety of shoe colors is necessary."
"Sooner or later they'll realize that not everyone is [that kind of] 'flesh color.'"
Freed's new product
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > golden caramel</h1>
The changes in the dance industry are just a microcosm of the changes in the overall environment.
Since around 2015, the "flesh color" needs of people of color, which have been brewing for many years, have been moved to the table more and more frequently for discussion. The definition of "flesh color" in the lives of ordinary people has finally begun to expand to the meaning it should represent.
The women's fashion website GRAZIA (Red Show) uses a long series of comparative sentences to record the changes in related industries in recent years:
French brand Gerbe and Italy's Levante have been quietly offering more options; Congolese moms of two have founded Okun Brown in Switzerland.
Known as "one of the top four aces in the global stocking industry," Gerbe is adding more skin tone options to their main new products
Across the Atlantic, American lingerie brand Cobra (Naja) made headlines last year with an advertising campaign under the slogan "Nude For All", Nude Barre began offering nude socks in sixteen shades, and Chantal Carter Taylor's Love & Nudes became "Canada's first brand to sell lingerie to women of color"...
Flip through the founding stories of the new brands and you'll find striking similarities — the frustration they almost all mention about finding a single "flesh-colored" piece of their own in the entire mall. This frustration, as Tahlia Gray, founder of Sheer Chemistry, put it:
"I had to question whether my beauty was worthy of recognition."
However, it is precisely because of their efforts at that time that today, there are fewer and fewer things that are disappointed in "beauty". We can already see frequently that fashion bloggers are naturally describing their sweetness in articles:
This time the Nubian Skin stockings are available in four shades. The deepest are (dark night) berries, which are available for espresso colors with MAC color number NW50 or Bobbi Brown; followed by (sweet) bread, which is for girls with MAC's NW45/47 or Bobbi Brown warm walnut colors; the third is (golden) caramel, which is for girls with Bobbi Brown gold foundation; the fourth, is O'Ree Coffee, which is made for women who have more milk than coffee...
——Planetfem.com
Nubian Skin's four "sturdy" products
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > its own color</h1>
But the changes mentioned above do not mean that the change in the meaning of "flesh color" has been settled — that is only a symbol of the beginning.
Especially when you see that the CK, which proudly said that its own fashion design category never uses "flesh color" labeling, will also enable "flesh color/nude color" in their daily underwear category.
CK's official websites in the United States and the United Kingdom also describe this color as "nude" and "bare" (meaning nude), respectively.
Admittedly, the use of "flesh color" to refer to "pink" and "beige" in many Asian countries is a more grounded and easy to understand choice - which makes us clear that the narrow "flesh color" labeling is often because of the brand's traditional inertial thinking, or for the convenience of the user's understanding, is not intentionally offensive.
But at the same time, it must be acknowledged that this expression in many ethnic countries in Europe and the Americas will inevitably cause problems for people of color.
In fact, there are many ingenious solutions. For example, THE PREFIX POLLY, which is labeled with the word "Shade":
There is also the above-mentioned Nubian Skin in dessert, which is a more respectful color expression for girls living in any country.
So, back to the original question – would black people call black stockings flesh color? It's not just a joke, it's a good question.
To understand this problem, people can realize that when European and American manufacturers no longer use "flesh color" to specify a specific color, it is out of a humanistic care; and when people with dark skin can call the color that matches their skin "flesh color", it is a symbol of social progress - you know, this is only something that can happen in recent years.
So, I don't think the discussion of this issue is meaningless at all, as Naja said in their advertising slogan:
"Every girl deserves the 'flesh color' of her own skin."