Black Is Beautiful!

By Cara

Monday, April 12, 2010, 11:54

Fashion magazine, Vogue has taken it up on itself to fight colour prejudice in India, a country that is predominantly biased against the dark skin.

In this month's Indian edition of the glamour magazine, British model Gia Johnson Singh, who has a fairly dark complexion, will appear with four other bikini-clad models on the front cover. The picture would be headlined, 'The Dawn of Dusk.'

The Vogue editorial stated said that "every generation has its share of beauty myths. Perhaps it's time to bust this one."

The very famous vogue magazine have always favoured the gorgeous colour of Indian skin ... dark, dusky, bronze, golden - whatever you call it.

The growth of fairness cream companies in the country is indicative of India's obsession with white skin, also called 'Snow White Syndrome.' Top brands such as Hindustan Unilever's Fair and Lovely and L'Oreal's White Perfect have been growing by up to 18 per cent a year.

Prabuddha Dasgupta, a fashion photographer also admitted to the country being colour biased. "I've been battling this colour prejudice for a long time. As a brown-skinned nation, we've turned against each other. Beauty companies have always perpetuated this collective insecurity and there are impressionable young girls of 13 or 14 who are dark-skinned and think there is no life ahead of them. It's appalling," he said.

Lets hope that Vogue's effort will change the prevailing colour-bias of this country. The skin colour matters a lot for women in India. Fairness is a very valuable thing here, looked on as desirable. The fashion world can be a big agent in changing this thought.