The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Kao Corporation is the latest beauty player to pledge the elimination of words including “whitening” and “lightening” from its products.
In Japan, Kao’s home market, as well as many other Asian countries in which its products are sold, consumers have long sought out cleansers, moisturisers and make-up that claim to lighten and whiten skin. The term commonly used in Japan to describe lightening, bihaku, translates to “beautiful white”, underlining the beauty ideal of white skin in traditional Japanese culture.
Kao said it decided to drop the term as part of a broader commitment to diversity, adding that it was wrong to promote the message that one skin tone is superior to another.
The company will use the word “brightening” from now on. Kao’s move makes it the first J-Beauty giant to follow the lead of international cosmetic giants, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson and L’Oréal that have made similar changes to their labelling recently.
At Egypt Fashion Week, BoF founder Imran Amed shared the origin story of BoF and reflects on the forces that will shape fashion in the coming decade.
The timeless appeal of the south Asian classic has gone global — and a new London exhibition shows how it has been reinvented.
The second edition of Oud Fashion Talks explored the forces transforming the Gulf’s fashion industry today, with key learnings from BoF Insights’ ‘Fashion in the Middle East’ report and from executives of local retailers, manufacturers, designers and entrepreneurs.
Accessible luxury and advanced contemporary brands in the US and Europe can expect greater competition from Australian labels expanding overseas like Camilla, Aje and Rebecca Vallance.