Trending Skintones
The Slow Awakening
A few years back with my packaged lingerie, I started trending about skin tones. As a person of color, it was easier to see how lingerie hues could impact intimate/lingerie trade—showcasing trends for skin tones, especially in shapewear and laser-cut basics was a given from my perspective. The silence from manufactures and buyers was expected. But I had hoped someone would see the vision. Happily that has all changed for the better. Trending concepts can be hard, especially when people who work in this industry fail to see the trend until someone else is successful at it. Knowing that the range of basics for people of color has advanced on so many layers when it comes to intimates is essential. Trending is about moving forward, as a designer working in the lingerie industry you can see the patterns of change if you pay attention, unfortunately, most businesses are about the bottom line and stepping outside the box is too much of a risk. I had one client tell me that he is happy selling his 30-year-old basic bra, recolored up every season, only to go back to the white, black and barely nude color range this bra is known for. Skintones he said would never happen, and he was not the only one dissing the direction I was storyboarding, not only with boards but also with facts about the coloring up of our population. The production of laser-cut styling showcased the ease of which skin tones could translate into the mainstream. The fabrication was perfect for the venue.
Now that the intimate world is more diverse in the color of one's intimates, we now have to step outside the box to figure out how to introduce more people of color into the design rooms and senior positions. The lack of color in fashion keeps the color range simple; it is time to change that one skin tone at a time. Designing lingerie is not only about the bottom line; it is also about planning for the future, so your bottom line doesn't depend on your 30-year-old bra in black, white and barely nude.
For more on my never ending story about our need to advance skintones. Tag: Skintones