If you’ve been blessed with a skin tone that is anything darker than a warm beige, then you know the pain of having to settle for a ‘skin-tone’ product that is anything but close to your skin tone. With few beauty brands and designers providing a truly ‘nude’ collection, it comes as good news that luxury shoemaker Christian Louboutin is making a change.
Using the social media platform Instagram, the designer announced the new colors added to his ‘Nudes” footwear collection—we managed to stitch together the three posts for a full view of the collection. The two new shades join the existing five for Spring. From porcelain to deep chocolate, the hues will be featured on pointed flat pumps with simple ballerina bow details on the front. Made of flexible matte nappa leather and finished with a simple ballerina bow detail, the shoes are designed to mimic the look and feel of skin and provide a light minimalist result.
While this is Louboutin’s first diverse collection, which is getting much positive feedback, he isn’t the only footwear designer who has created nude shades to match various skin tones. In March, dancewear brand Bloch unveiled its nude “Eric Tan” shoe in honor of African American Royal Ballet soloist Eric Underwood. Having seen the dancer ‘pancaking’ his pale dance shoes with dark makeup to match his natural skin, the brand created the first black flesh tone ballet shoe in the world.
While the beauty industry has been making much-needed inroads into the issue of catering for non-white skin tones for some time — and continues to do so, with singer Kelly Rowland recently revealing plans to develop a makeup line for dark skins — the fashion industry has been slower to catch on. Will Louboutin and Bloch encourage other designers to put their best foot forward?