Meet the 8 stunning South Asian models to look out for in 2018
updated the 22 November 2017 à 12:23
#BrownPride, anyone?
Fashion is certainly making slow, but heartening, progress in its embrace of diversity – we’re definitely smelling the winds of change.
However, as much as we have been making progress in expanding our definitions of beauty, and pushing for more diversity in representation within the media, South Asian models (i.e. referring to those with origins in South Asia, which include countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, to name a few) have still somewhat been eclipsed through all the change.
While a cursory search on “Asian models” will bring up the likes of East Asian beauties like Liu Wen, who have been making waves in the fashion spheres by appearing on covers of major titles and booking commercially successful stints like the VS Fashion Show, not as much is known about their duskier-toned, South Asian counterpart.
Things are hopefully changing, however. British-born Neelam Gill is making waves as the first model of Indian descent to book the highly-coveted Burberry campaign and appear in British Vogue. She is also one of the few women of South Asian heritage to be a L’oreal ambassador, following in the footsteps of Aishwarya Rai and Frieda Pinto. Unlike previous commercially successful Indian models like Lakshmi Menon, who did not necessarily look like the classic ‘Indian girl’ in her words, Neelam is every bit identifiably South Asian – something Christopher Bailey, chief creative at Burberry specifically wanted for his campaign.
As such, in celebration of beauty in its various shades, sizes, faiths and more, it couldn’t be more timely to shine a light on South Asian models making their marks in the fashion world. Browse the 8 South Asian models we’re absolutely girl crushin’ on in the gallery above!
Sarah Khan
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