Colour of Nude

Throughout my childhood, ‘nude’ was never used to reference one’s state of undress: naked was the word of choice.

Nude instead meant a specific shade of beige with nothing to connect it to skin colour. In the UK, white people are pink-to-cream, too light for nude; the olive skin of Spanish and Italian friends was too dark for nude. There was no reason for us to connect ‘nude’ with ‘nakedness’.

American shows turned ‘naked/bum/arse’ into ‘nude/butt/ass’. In America, ‘nude’ referred to the many shades of white people’s skin (none of which could be actually identified as nude, I might add). This meant the cosmetic industry excluded and alienated black people. Why this made sense I don’t know: surely if you’re going to make ‘nude’ cover people’s nakedness, surely you’d extend it to everyone’s nakedness?

This may not seem like such a big deal but oppression is built upon loads of little things adding up to become unbearable pressure. This is just another example of people ignoring black people. So it needs to change.

This is a problem that started in America but it has bled through to other places. I don’t think it’s possible to salvage nude the colour from this mess. The specific shade that we’d call nude needs new terminology (perhaps ‘soft olive’ or warm beige’). The incentive to change it is far stronger than the incentive to keep it: what’s a colour compared to millions of people?