Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning Nigerian author and celebrated feminist, is the new face of Boots No7 with the campaign being launched on television, online, in print and in outdoor media since October 21.
Adichie spoke about how she used to fear being taken less seriously because of her love of make-up, but later came to embrace it as a tool, an enhancement and as part of her own identity.
Adichie says she feels the same way about fashion. In a Vogue interview last year, she talked about how she often designs her own clothes using crayons her husband gave her, and then working with local tailors to bring them to life.
“I do all these drawings for my clothes,” she told Erica Wagner. “Really terrible drawings. But I love to do them, and he gave me the crayons so I could add a little bit of colour.”
In the same interview, she told Wagner that she “always” carries her own make-up base with her due to a lack of shades for black skin, though perhaps No7’s commitment to inclusivity and the broadest possible shade range will change this.
In Vogue’s November 2016 Real Issue, in “The New Face Of Beauty: You”, she said of the campaign: “I think much of beauty advertising relies on a false premise – that women need to be treated in an infantile way, given a ‘fantasy’ to aspire to… Real women are already inspired by other real women, so perhaps beauty advertising needs to get on board.”
Boots has joined the team who recognizes the draw of Adichie, whose much-celebrated TED talks have been sampled by Beyoncé and featured on T-shirts in Maria Grazia Chiuri’s debut Dior show earlier this month.
