The story starts from the idiosyncrasy of the Anglo-Saxon colonialism which stresses on the chastity of ‘its’ women, their important function of procreation and how important it was for them to always look in perfect shape, size and of the ‘right’ colour. From there, this notion of people being of the right colour to always look attractive and sexually appealing to those interested has transcended ages, generations and times. It is not an exaggeration to say for the least that the origin of colourism cannot be traced in the course of near history. It seems to have been the norm from time immemorial.
But here’s where the theme for this edition becomes really important in terms of turning tables. “Dark is Beautiful” as a campaign was started in 2009, by Women of Wonder, a Non- Profit Organisation based in Chennai, India, to fight the evils of colourism in all walks of life but gained the most traction in the Small-screen Sitcom Industry and the Fashion Industry. It seeks to draw attention to the unjust effects of skin colour bias, shaped by societal attitudes and reinforced by media messages that corrode the self-worth of countless Indians, young and old. The campaign exists to challenge the belief that the value and beauty of people (in India and worldwide), is determined by the fairness of their skin. Through conducting workshops and events, the project has reached out to people from all walks of life, with the message, “a person’s self-worth does not depend on the colour of their skin”.
The movement drew inspiration from another similar movement of the nature that was started by coloured American people, especially those of the African American origin, in the United States of America in 1960. Back then, the movement had a larger standing and goal of fighting racism against the coloured minorities in America. It drew support from not only the ‘negro’ (we highly despise the usage of classist terms/ slurs, one of which was this, used to refer to the African-American population in the United States) population but also the white Americans who thought it was unfair to discriminate and mark certain jobs, areas and institutions exclusively to the white and black population.
One might as well wonder how a movement of this kind makes its space in the existing social construct and belief system, where out of ignorance or through years of social conditioning that you are made to believe that white is equal to beautiful. From there, the graph of participation in the movement has only gone up. Recently, Bollywood stars came together to celebrate ten years of the movement by symbolically all starring on television in all black attire. Alia Bhatt and Nargis Fakhri were spotted in all black attire to celebrate the first anniversary of the movement in 2010. Nandita Das, an eminent Indian filmmaker joined the move of the ‘Dark is Beautiful’ campaign in 2013 with her video titled “India’s got Colour” as her contribution to fight colourism in a country of essentially coloured people only. India's Got Colour has been made with a predominantly black-coloured theme with an army of celebrities, in a rather suggestive tone, reprimanding the audience for the prevalent fixation with fairness and discriminating attitude towards people of colour.
The movement was widely written about and referred to in literary works of Indian activists and revolutionary leaders, especially of the student community and of the political left. The movement became an inspiration for Indians with darker skin tones to establish brand chains with dark skinned models sporting darker shade garments. An all-black garment brand ‘Turn Black’ was established with its production hub centred in Chennai. Its major revenue is driven to provide literacy about colourism and to give employment to people with a background of skin colour discrimination. With this movement as the theme of this issue, we have tried to make our share of contribution to enlighten our readers about the evils and the roadmap of overcoming them in the Fashion Industry, and how they marked differences that are now embraced in the industry!
- Yaksh Handa
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