Model Nidhi Sunil opens up about being trolled for having dark skin

BY ANJAN SACHAR

The colour of your skin is a point of merit in a country like ours. If you were to take the popular opinion, the lighter your perfect shade of foundation, the better you look. Indian model and actor Nidhi Sunil—you’ve probably spotted her on local and international runways, in commercials around the globe, or in your copy of Vogue India—who’s been in the business for over seven years now, was recently trolled on her Instagram account because of her dark-coloured skin. On a picture from a shoot for a travel magazine, an Instagram account called @GoanForever (with 0 posts or followers, but following 1,091 accounts), commented about how she’s dark-skinned and needs to wear a swimsuit to get attention. Here, an unfazed Sunil talks about the incident, and what it’s like to be a dark-skinned model in a country that is obsessed with fairness.

On what actually transpired on Instagram

I uploaded an image from the shoot and a few hours later, I noticed a lot of comments. Most of them came from one account and other people interacting with that account. One of these was my friend and another person who I don’t even know, and they were just being very nice and standing up for me. The troll was going on and on about how I wasn’t good enough to be a model—it’s definitely an Instagram account made for trolling, because it has no posts of its own but follows over a thousand people.

See the Instagram Posts >>here<<

On modelling in India and overseas

When I started modelling in India, it was definitely a problem to be my skin tone. There were girls like Carol Gracious who were doing runway but that was because they were all super tall, which I’m not. You can’t do print or TV commercials [if you’re dark]—you basically couldn’t work with brands because the way you look would never sell anything. There’s the perception that if you’re a dark girl who wants to be a fashion model, you have to be very tall; and people won’t accept you on TV, print or billboards because you don’t look “aspirational”. There’s definitely not as much representation internationally for us, as there is for the fair-skinned.

It’s a very chicken-and-egg situation when it comes to what should change as opposed to what is the status quo. While people will say that this is not what the public wants, it’s also upon us to educate the public about what it is. It is changing because social media has given people a platform to speak out and be an activist; more likely to find themselves being in a situation where they become an activist like I did. When you have an opinion and people resonate with that opinion, you have a storm brewing about the issue at hand.

On the need for diversity

Even now a show overseas might have 16 white girls, three black models, three Asian models and maybe one brown model—now—one representing India. I’ve done a lot more commercial work abroad than I’ve done fashion weeks because my height is an issue, but I’ve worked for brands like American Apparel and Walmart. A lot of brands are now focusing on diversity, so they’re definitely pushing their marketing teams to put together a campaign that focuses on their brand being worldly and representing as many sections of society as they can. In fact, a lot of people don’t think I’m Indian, not even in India, which was another problem because then I wouldn’t resonate with the Indian market. Some people think I’m Nigerian, Ethiopian, South American and even Spanish.

read more