Today, March 21, sports fashion brand Björn Borg introduces the Skin Collection; skin toned underwear for everyone. The collection is deliberately launched on the United Nation’s Racial Discrimination Day, as a tribute to human rights and equality for all.
So-called “nude” underwear traditionally only caters to white skinned individuals, offered in tones like beige or blush, despite the fact that an 84% majority of the world’s population has a skin tone other than the standard “nude” colour. To put the light on this inequality, Björn Borg introduces the Skin Collection – an underwear line in six shades of human, following the Fitzpatrick skin scale*.
– Nude is not a colour; it’s a concept that everybody should have the right to enjoy. We call it six shades of human and the reason to our launch on the UN Racial Discrimination Day is that the political climate in Europe has been very tough as of late and it is time to show colour. This is our contribution to that debate, comments Björn Borg Marketing Director, Jonas Lindberg Nyvang.
Human skin pigmentation evolved primarily to regulate the amount of ultraviolet radiation penetrating the skin, a fact that the so-called Fitzpatrick skin scale* rests upon. The Fitzpatrick scale is a classification on typical response of different types of skin to ultraviolet radiation and covers six major skin tones; the very same that are offered through the new Björn Borg skin collection.
The skin collection comes in a hotpant for her and short shorts for him and is made from a fresh microfibre material to maintain high breathability and comfortable fit.
The collection retails at €32.95 through selected retail and through the Björn Borg web shop, www.bjornborg.com .
* The Fitzpatrick skin scale is a numerical classification schema for human skin color . It was developed in 1975 by Thomas B. Fitzpatrick , a Harvard dermatologist , as a way to classify the typical response of different types of skin to ultraviolet (UV) light. There are six levels in the Fitzpatrick scale, ranging from Type I (which is very light, always burns in direct sunlight and never tans), to type VI (which is deeply pigmented dark brown or black and never burns).
ABOUT BJÖRN BORG:
The Group owns the Björn Borg trademark and its core business is underwear and sportswear. It also offers footwear, luggage & bags and eyewear through licensees. Björn Borg products are sold in around thirty markets, of which Sweden and the Netherlands are the largest. The Björn Borg Group has operations at every level from branding to consumer sales in its own Björn Borg stores. Total sales of Björn Borg products in 2014 amounted to about SEK 1.4 billion, excluding VAT, at the consumer level. Group net sales amounted to SEK 539 million in 2014, with an average of 129 employees. The Björn Borg share has been listed on NASDAQ Stockholm since 2007.
