![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/gucciaw18.png\")
Gucci AW18<\/p>\n Gucci AW18<\/p>\n
Slowly but surely the faces fronting beauty and fashion campaigns appear to be moving away from the skinny, cisgendered white woman prototype to encompass more \u201cdiverse\u201d choices. From Fenty Beauty, The Ordinary and even Kylie Jenner\u2019s monster of a cosmetic line, black and brown models aren\u2019t a rarity anymore. But am I the only one sitting here wondering \u2014 where are the South Asian women? <\/span> With racial diversity in the fashion and beauty industries on an all-time high, Tahmina Begum asks what about South Asian representation? <\/p>","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":65623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[81,10897],"tags":[10615,603,10616,10617,6092,21,10618,10619,10620,10622,10623,5617,2483],"class_list":["post-65590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fashion","category-opinion","tag-amaliah","tag-beauty","tag-bollywood","tag-burnt-roti-mag","tag-diversity","tag-fashion","tag-fenty","tag-lamisa-khan","tag-neelam-gill","tag-pooja-mor","tag-sharan-dhaliwal","tag-south-asia","tag-vogue"],"acf":{"legacy":true,"main_category":10897,"hero_title":"","subtitle":"","hero":{"video":false,"image":false,"header_color":"black","overlay_color":"","overlay_text_color":"black"},"teasers":{"video":false,"image":false,"width":"4","proportion":"default"},"related_articles":"","next_article":"","content":false},"yoast_head":"\n
\nDo not reply: \u201cBollywood\u201d. As we\u2019ve seen across countless fashion weeks and collaborations in the past year \u2014 where \u201cdiversity\u201d has become somewhat of a buzzword \u2014 racial visibility on a broad scale is inching forward<\/a>. But South Asian representation seems to be at a halt. This is not to ask black, brown and other \u201cothers\u201d to step aside or make their space in mainstream media smaller, but to question why we aren\u2019t seeing more South Asian women when we scroll through Instagram, scour catwalks or flick through the pages of magazines. <\/span>
\nThis part of the continent has had so many ships crashing into it for the sake of colonialism, that its population today boasts a varied and striking array of physical characteristics \u2014from coarse waves to sleek tresses and high, chiselled cheek bones to rounder features. But why is this broad spectrum of beauty so untapped by the fashion world? Occasionally a brand will collaborate with bloggers who are <\/span>technically<\/span><\/i> South Asian \u2014 but whose straight hair, lighter skin tone and facial features fall firmly within the boundaries of Eurocentric beauty standards \u2014 simply so they can tick the \u201cSouth Asian\u201d box, it seems. Even the spaces which are supposed to represent South Asian women, like Bollywood, only showcase a tiny percentage of what South Asian women actually look like.<\/span>
\nhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BTv2CywA2p5\/?hl=en&taken-by=poojamor
\nAt the moment, there isn\u2019t even a handful of South Asian models who can be said to represent the South Asian community on an international scale. If you really look for them, of course, there are a few examples: <\/span>Neelam Gill<\/span><\/a> has been walking for Burberry since 2014; <\/span>Pooja Mor<\/span><\/a> has been photographed for <\/span>Vogue<\/span><\/i> across the globe, and recently Edward Enninful included face-to-watch <\/span>Radhika Nair<\/span> on British Vogue\u2019s May cover, positioned among a racially diverse selection of women who represent the \u201cnew frontiers\u201d of modelling.<\/span> But as Sharan Dhaliwal, Founding Editor of <\/span>Burnt Roti Mag<\/span><\/a>, notes, \u201cI\u2019m aware of these figures because my job requires me to seek out South Asian representation. Whereas a young person, who isn\u2019t actively searching for them, may not see people like themselves represented at all.\u201d <\/span>
\nWhen I ask Dhaliwal what she thinks of recent fashion, beauty or lifestyle campaigns, like Fenty Beauty and Pat McGrath, which preach diversity but still lack South Asian representation (or a variety of it), her retort centres on issues of self-representation. \u201c<\/span>I think it\u2019s important to recognise that South Asians have a need for representation, but we shouldn\u2019t be looking at black-owned brands, asking to see our face; that\u2019s riding on the coattails of their hard work. What\u2019s important is for us to create these campaigns ourselves and tell our own stories. Instead of asking ‘why?’, we should actively say, ‘Here we are! I\u2019m presenting myself to you and you can\u2019t look away because I\u2019m not going to let you!’\u201d<\/span>
\nhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BixHfuPg7EC\/?taken-by=neelamkg
\nLamisa Khan<\/span><\/a>, writer for <\/span>Amaliah<\/span><\/a>, an online destination for the millennial Muslim woman, feels differently. The attempt to be seen is there, she argues, but this entire conversation is forgetting one thing: that being South Asian just isn\u2019t \u201ccool\u201d right now. \u201cIt\u2019s weird because we have so many Miss Worlds and Miss Universes \u2014 India holds the most titles for Miss World \u2014 but we still have haven\u2019t broken into mainstream Western pop culture because we\u2019re associated with corner shops and curry, and we\u2019re not considered the pretty girls at school.\u201d <\/span>
\nWith our thick hair all over our bodies, our parents\u2019 accents, which still form the butt of jokes, and the hyper-awareness surrounding our culture, especially since 9\/11, we South Asian millennials take a frankly cautious approach to reclaiming our culture \u2014 when it\u2019s not just about sequins, mehndi and bindis. Though we may be talking about fashion and beauty campaigns here, this problem stems from the bigger landscape. Arguably, as South Asian women are inevitably associated with Islam, a religion which itself has become increasingly associated with extremity, the oppression of women and, because of the refugee crisis, poverty. It doesn\u2019t seem too far fetched to think that brands might want to skirt the social and political issues that employing South Asian women to front their campaigns could potentially stir up.<\/span>
\nhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Bg9AoNAn0B5\/?utm_source=ig_embed
\nBut surely, in our social media-driven age, where big brands are no longer able to use solely white models without being called up on it, the time has come to put South Asian women on the map. But how to make this happen? The question is not one I\u2019m aiming specifically at casting agents and luxury brands, but at South Asian communities too, where femininity and modesty is still synonymous with female beauty. Moreover, the modelling industry is still viewed by many as something inherently provocative \u2014 Jessie Brar, a writer at Brown Girl Magazine, says that she has \u201ccountlessly\u201d heard modelling equated to little more than<\/span>\u00a0\u201cgetting naked in front of a camera\u201d for money.<\/span>
\nThus, Brar notes, many young South Asian women are led to believe that if they were to pursue a career in modelling, they would in some way be risking their loyalty to their culture. \u201cIt’s got to do with\u00a0<\/span>this whole ‘log kya kehenge’ (what will people say) mentality in all brown communities,\u201d she says. \u201cWe always put the community before the individual, so people\u2019s thoughts become more important than the individual\u2019s happiness. It\u2019s ridiculous. I think this causes a lot of South Asians, especially women, to hold back on their dreams\u201d. <\/span>As a result, South Asian visibility often ends up being shaped by those who are not from the South Asian community meaning that our representation tends to be neither positive, varied nor correct. <\/span>
\nhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BQn6Jg7leXl\/?utm_source=ig_embed
\nWriter Lamisa Khan continues this train of thought by adding that the problem is exacerbated by the common second generation issue that many children of immigrants face: feeling compelled to select a \u201cstable career\u201d after the sacrifices many parents have made for them. \u201cOur parents have come here to provide us with better lives and becoming an actor\/ model\/ musician is seen as a non-career for them,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt\u2019s not because those aren\u2019t good careers, but more so because they haven\u2019t seen people who look like us prosper in that field in the U.K.\u201d <\/span>
\nSo what steps need to be taken to stop South Asian women being seen as an afterthought? First, there needs to be self-healing within the community, so that South Asian women recognise themselves as worthy of celebration on a universal scale. Especially, as Dhaliwal adds, \u201cbecause w<\/span>e have years of self-hatred, anti-blackness, homophobia and so much more to look at within our own community\u201d. Second, when South Asian women and their stories are published, there need to be South Asian women in the background to make sure that these representations serve to expand the narratives of our culture, rather than reinforcing stereotypes. <\/span>
\nThird: we don\u2019t need to wait until all of these deep-rooted problems within our communities are solved before envisaging ourselves in positions of power. As Brar says, \u201cWe as South Asians should never have to hold ourselves back.\u201d There is no need for the next generation to face these problems. Let\u2019s start diversifying diversity please, and ensure a broader scope of representation when it comes to what it means, and looks like, to be South Asian. <\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"