Though I didn’t know it then, retrospect teaches me that when I was a kid I desperately wished to see someone who looked like me reflected back to me in the pages of the magazines I so worshiped. Diversity in media wasn’t a thing and therefore my beauty ideals were wrapped around the idea of something I could never physically (nor surgically) be.
When my friend Carly, the co-founder of Tkees asked me to be a part of something cool she was working on I was intrigued, because, well, she’s the coolest person I know and I obsess over everything she makes. When I found out it was a campaign for her new line of nude flip flops I was both excited and scared. The old ideas of not being pretty enough or skinny enough or right enough came creeping back, easing me into a nervous semi paralytic state in which I whirled around and around in my head staring blankly at the wall.
And then it came to me.
I may not be pretty enough or skinny enough or right enough but what is enough and who made those standards? I thought about me not being reflected to me when I was little and how I (in the least conceited way) could somehow be the reflection to another little girl dying to have her beauty legitimized somehow, anywhere.
Last night Foundation Bar by Tkees launched in New York City. The collection, created to be nudes for all women in a sumptuous array of colours from Seashell to Deep Glow, nailed it. It would take my perfectly obsessive friend to come up with a spectrum of colours that compliment not only one woman but each and EVERY one of them.
Thank you to Carly and the whole Tkees team for pushing the boundaries, breaking down those tight walls and smashing that dang glass ceiling. For realizing the opportunity in embracing all women, especially women of colour, and for giving the little girls who are right now forming their own personal beauty ideals a chance to see a little of themselves reflected back to them.
Check out the full campaign HERE
xx,
Coco