Fashion Nova has garnered a terrible reputation for its colorist social media behavior and other seemingly shoddy business practices. The brand has been called out countless times for failing to include dark-skinned people who promote their clothes on its Instagram page and for allegedly intentionally stealing designs from black-owned indie brands. Influencer Jackie Aina even revealed that she stopped collaborating with the brand after it refused to include more dark-skinned people on its Instagram page.
This week, dark-skinned Instagram model Atim Ojera came forward with claims that the brand tokenized her after Aina brought light to its colorist Instagram practices, then promptly ended her contract when the bad press died down. Let's spread out all of these receipts.
Jackie Aina called out Fashion Nova for colorism on YouTube in March without directly naming it. She later confirmed that she was indeed referring to the fast-fashion brand.
"Every time I go on this page, the majority of [the] women I see are either light-skinned black women, biracial women, or they're racially ambiguous," Aina said. "They could be one thing [or] they could be something else. You don't really know. Do I have a problem with them being represented in beauty or fashion? I don't. But when that's the only thing I see on the page…"
Aina also pointed out that Fashion Nova brand purposefully markets itself to black people but refuses to prominently feature dark-skinned people on its Instagram page.
According to Aina, when she communicated her concerns about the colorism she witnessed Fashion Nova perpetuating, the brand simply offered her more money.
How trash is that? Jackie Aina felt uncomfortable promoting Fashion Nova because the retailer doesn't feature dark-skinned people very often. When she brought up her concerns, Fashion Nova allegedly offered to pay her more money instead of actually agreeing to fix the problem. Aina also revealed that another influencer brought up this same issue to Fashion Nova and the brand asked her to simply return their clothes if she was unhappy. Per the email screenshots that Aina shared, Fashion Nova denied that it has a colorism issue altogether.
Model and influencer Atim Ojera has just opened up about her experience working with Fashion Nova.
The details aren't pretty. Ojera wrote to Jackie Aina about how she was treated by Fashion Nova after Aina publicly called the brand out.
"I came across your video on Fashion Nova and noticed my image in your video (I’ll send below in this message.) I wanted to tell you 'thank you' because working with Fashion Nova has honestly made me feel even more depressed than I already am," Ojera wrote.
Ojera went on to reveal that Fashion Nova hired her, but she quickly noticed something very wrong with her experience.
"I was contacted to do paid promotions with them which was fine for me, but then there was one picture of me they posted which everyone went crazy over (which I’m also thankful for many reasons). However, after a while, I noticed they would [only] post me. At first, I felt like I was representing for all black women but then I realized out of the millions of black women promoting for them, it shouldn’t just be me because there are waaaaay more of us who have even better style than I do.”
Things with Fashion Nova took a pretty quick turn that led Ojera to believe that the colorism accusations are actually true.
"Now, I’m assuming that after you posted your video (due to the comments under my pictures), they contacted me asking if I wanted to become an official model for them for [their] website/commercials they had," Ojera continued.
"I was honestly so excited at the time because I was oblivious and genuinely thought they wanted me to be their sole representation. However, when all of the comments about your video had gone down a little bit, they contacted me basically saying they don’t need me anymore because “they put their model search on a [halt]. For me, it was fine (although I was a little bit torn).”
Then, Ojera learned something terrible about her business deal with Fashion Nova.
“…I later learned they were paying me waaaaaaaaaaaaay less than other influencers who were working with them. I really felt cheated and unfortunately, still have a contract with them so I have to finish my last few posts. Otherwise, I’ll have to pay them back the money they sent me.”
It's also worth it to note that Jackie Aina had to pay her way out of her Fashion Nova contract as well. That's just disgusting.
Ojera has vowed to never work with Fashion Nova again after she finishes up the required Instagram posts in her contract.
“After this, I will never work with them again after how they’ve treated myself and many other smaller black influencers who are worth just as much if not more than other influencers. I really do hope I can get out of this contract with them ASAP so that I can move on to bigger and genuine brands. You really are such a huge inspiration. P.S. They never put [their model search] on halt by the way. They hired more white/latino/racially ambiguous models and seeing that [genuinely] made me feel less than. Smh.”
If you scroll through the Fashion Nova Instagram right now, you'll notice that there are still only a handful of dark-skinned people featured on the platform.
Fashion Nova hasn't switched up its practices despite the many people who have called out the blatant colorism. The brand has made it a common practice to post more dark-skinned people when influencers publicize their shoddy practices. Once the heat dies down, the brand seems to revert right back to prioritizing people with lighter skin. How long is the culture still going to support a brand that so blatantly disrespects us?
