FLESH TONE
Written by NZINGHA for ZFACEINC,nyc

What does “Nude” or “Flesh Tone” mean to women of color in fashion?

I recall sitting at my Grandmum’s feet and hearing her tell me stories of the fashions from her era 1930-1950’s. Those were her years of being a “Fashionista”. She told me how the women styled their hair (usually short or neck length and sometimes a bit longer but rolled up short into chingon’s), nails (mostly red varnish and then eventually pink) and makeup (pretty much nothing a powder if you could find one to match your skin color, red lipstick, mascara and a brow pencil).
Some modern young women could stand to re-evaluate their presentation. Take a peek at this vintage Makeup Tutorial…

I would look at some of her old photographs and the albums she had and even found one or two magazines. The women in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s were so glamourous and feminine looking, even on their down days they were still well groomed.

Ms. Edith (Grandmum) once told me a story while I was shimmying into my “nude” colored nylons (1977) getting ready for church. I was complaining about how ugly the Color of these stockings really were and how it just didn’t look like the natural color of my legs, maybe I should’ve tried just getting coffee (a brown thats darker than my natural medium brown colored legs) or black (you could never be wrong with black sheer nylons on right?)

I noticed she was laughing at me and said “AnnZingha, you think those are ugly eh? (Sucking her teeth) You should’ve seen the ones we had to wear back then. They used to call them Red Fox and boy were they eva RED! They were literally red. This was the only natural toned nylons for black people. Either that Beige or Black sheer. That was it!! Take it or leave it!”