I become so disturbed when marriage ads in Indian papers specify skin color (not that I often look through marriage ads :). Several dating sites do it to. If I catch one of my parents make a comment about fair skin being desirable in a mate I chastise them vociferously. There are very few things that make my blood boil as much as this issue. All the more so because I know that despite my best intentions, society has shaped my thoughts in the same way. Asians in Media reports on the obvious bias on Asian fashion magazine covers.
It’s an open secret that the majority of Asian parents have a bias towards fairer skin. Is the same true for Asian fashion magazines in Britain?
Aside from the horror stories of girls applying dangerous chemicals to their skins, the image of a beautiful Asian girl as fair with coloured contact lenses and dark brown hair is constantly thrown at us. Surely Asian fashion publications are partly to blame for this?
AiM asked two writers who have been in the industry for years, and both say the problem lies with wider culture and society, coupled with a lack of professional Asian models.
Nilpa Bharadia is former acting editor of Asian Woman/Bride magazine and recently launched the Asian Bridal Look Book with her business partner Kiren. She says the decision to use European and Brazillian models for fashion shoots is never made lightly.
“The simple fact of the matter is that if we had a choice of an agency standard Asian model, i.e 5’10” plus, and a size 8 and with beautiful features, and a white model - we would cast the Asian girl everytime,” shes says.
“It’s not that the Asian girls that used to come through the door weren’t beautiful, many were, and we made numerous exceptions on height etc. where possible. But unfortunately they were the exception to the rule.”
I’m not buying this last argument. If you stand in any supermarket line you will note that fair skin dominates regardless of the ethnicity being targeted. Do all those ethnicities lack enough model material? The editors being interviewed pointed out one Brit magazine (i-D) they claim uses “extremely black-skinned” models WHEN they hire black. I flipped through several of their mag covers and didn’t see any black models at all. Later in the article the writer presses the editors and gets to the more “logical” reasons for this bias.
“There are many people who know sisters, friends, daughters whom they believe are stunning. However modelling is a profession and not every stunning girl translates this talent onto film.” Height and beauty she says are “basic skills” of any competent model, and fashion magazines have to start with that basic requirement.
Then of course there is the touching up of pictures that goes on - sometimes making the models whiter, taller or even thinner in some cases, than they are in reality.
“Most fashion pictures are colour adjusted to make sure the detail on clothing is more striking. Modeling the world over is all about chisel chinned, toned, thin, fair-skinned girls. We don’t take ourselves so seriously that we believe we can change that,” Shihab adds.
Not all Asian fashion magazines subscribe to that view, thankfully. Some do use non-professional models with a darker-tone, specially in India. But the British Asian market and the Indian fashion industry are worlds apart. Who has the budget to pay for professional Indian models to come to Britain for a shoot?
There is also a paradox at work. We may want a darker, chocolate-coloured sister on the front cover of a fashion magazine but do then buy that product? Certainly, the more successful fashion publications such as Asian Woman, Asiana and Look Book feature mostly light-skinned models.
Could it mean us girls vote with our wallets using our eyes and not our hearts?
Yes. That’s just the way it’s going to be I guess. Alas, this is too big to fight.
