Cliché Tuesday: Nude is not a bloody colour

I never thought about this before I read through the comments of an article considering skin colours in The Hunger Games, but I wonder: in Africa, does the term 'nude', when used for clothes, refer to darker skin shades?

Isn't it strange that the fashion world uses the word 'nude' for a colour? Nude isn't a colour. It's a characteristic in itself completely unrelated to skin colour. (Although I do admit, I look totally nekkid when dressed in light beiges and creams and whatnot.) Not only is using nude as an adjective for clothes a paradox (it means 'no clothes', you fashion scallywags!), it is also - dare I say it? - kind of racist.

I'm not saying all fashion editors writing about nude being the new black or whatever are racists. But they are projecting a certain ideal by doing so. Let's turn it into mathematics.

Nude = white skin
Nude = fashionable
The aspirational skin colour of fashionable girls = ?

Just sayin'. I'm always the last one to find things out and I'm probably way behind on this, judging by the date of this excellent piece on the whole matter, but I still wanted to share my thoughts.