Unsurprisingly, I’m not alone in being made to feel second-rate by the industry and, for many, that’s a bitter pill to swallow because we buy into it as much as the next 30-something on the District Line reapplying her lip gloss.
We prop it up and plough our money into what was in 2020 valued to be an £8.71bn market. There are no stats to show exactly how much the ESEA community contributes to this figure.
But then again, there wouldn’t be, because no one knows exactly how many people from the ESEA diaspora live in the UK, despite the British Chinese community being the fourth-largest minority ethnic group, according to the 2011 census.
Upali Tamang, 28, a marketing executive of Nepalese heritage, lives in Kent. She tells Stylist: “For an industry that has come so far and talks about being inclusive of all women of colour, how is it that many samples later, I still find myself having to settle with the closest thing that suits my skin?
“I believe this lack of options makes it clear that the ESEA community is still only being considered as a niche market, and not being…
