Vogue India's 'Fifty Shades of Nude", A Testament To Nuanced Sisterhood By Bikramjit Bose

Vogue India's 'Fifty Shades of Nude", A Testament To Nuanced Sisterhood By Bikramjit Bose

Vogue India shares a photographic vision of the topic front and center of our fashion industry minds: skin color.

Just now, I found a 2009 AOC short speaking about Padmi Lakshmi, former wife of Salman Rushdie, and a quote from Paula Karaiskos, of Storm Models saying: “The whole discussion about using more ethnic women in fashion has broadened the debate on models in fashion in general and designers are now looking for more discerning faces to front their campaigns.”

In retrospect, I’m not quite sure what Karaiskos meant, given the meaning of ‘discerning’. She meant well.

The Guardian article was focused primarily on the rise of Asian models in fashion. A decade later, AOC remains proud of our heritage and headline: Is the Entrenched Dominance of White Fashion Models Ending? I admit never dreaming it would take nearly a decade to smash through fashion’s white supremacy mentality once and for all. Without social media and the Internet, this breakthrough wouldn’t have happened. Old ways would have prevailed.

Vogue India’s May 2019 issue takes the convo into one of nuance with “Fifty Shades of Nude”, lensed by Bikramjit Bose with styling by Anaita Shroff Adajania. / Hair & makeup by Manaisha

Eye: Fashion Icon Iris Apfel Covers Elle India November 2017, By Bikramjit Bose In 'Friday With Iris'

Eye: Fashion Icon Iris Apfel Covers Elle India November 2017, By Bikramjit Bose In 'Friday With Iris'

Fashion icon, interior designer and American businesswoman Iris Apfel, rolling at age 96, fronts the November 2017 issue of Elle India. Malini Banerji styles Iris in images by Bikramjit Bose for 'Friday With Iris'. / Makeup by Eric Vosburg

Iris Apfel is known for being blunt. For example, when asked by Fashionista about dressing for your age, she responded: "I think that's stupid," Apfel says about the phrase. "I think [designers are] all entirely too youth-oriented. I think a lot of designers create very expensive clothes for women [in their] 60s and 70s — people who wear them — and they create them for 16- and 18-year-old bodies. The kids can't afford to buy them and the women look like a horse's ass if they put it on. So it's all out of whack."

Listen up, designers! Apfel sat down with T Magazine's Deborah Needleman in 2013.

Bikramjit Bose Captures Ravyanshi Mehta In 'Unzip The Hip' For Elle India May 2017

Rising Indian model Ravyanshi Mehta is styled by Rahul Vijay in 'Unzip The Hip'. An AOC favorite photographer Bikramjit Bose captures Mehta in splendid images with some wonderful poses for Elle India May 2017./ Beauty by Sandhya Shekar; art direction by Reshma Rajiwdekar