How Proclaim Founder Shobha Philips Is Redefining “Nude”

Redefining “Nude”

Notably, Proclaim — along with brands such as Nubian Skin, Naja, and Boody — is one of the first clothing brands to expand the definition of nude underwear, an undertaking inspired by Philips’s personal shopping experiences growing up. 

Born and raised in St. Louis, MO, Philips says that, even as a child, she was aware of the fashion industry’s blatant disregard for people of color. “I was always kind of aware that there was a color called nude that was obviously not my skin tone color,” she says. “I had this awareness but I didn’t really think there was a possibility to do anything about it.” Fed up with the fashion industry’s failure to represent women of all skin tones, Philips took the matter into her own hands. 

After earning a degree in marketing, design, and international business from the University of Minnesota, Philips took on a merchandising role at Target Corp. There, she witnessed firsthand the ins and outs of managing a large corporation: how to manage the supply chain, oversee finances, and how to use fashion terminology. These tricks of the trade later proved useful when Philips had an epiphany that would kick-start her entrepreneurial ventures. 

“It was just mind-boggling to me.”

“It was the year 2015 and I couldn’t believe there was just one color that people were calling nude but it didn’t match the skin tone of billions of people on planet Earth,” Philips says. “It was just mind-boggling to me.” While juggling a full-time job, Philips spent nights and weekends creating a prototype for a bra that matched her skin tone. Working with SFMade, Philips was able to get the business off the ground. In 2018, she moved to Los Angeles to develop the idea further. 

“It took me almost a year and a half [to get the business started] because I was working full time while I was figuring out my supply chain, figuring out what materials I was going to use,” she says, adding that some suppliers were more difficult to work with than others. 

Describing a specific incident when she first moved to LA, Philips recalls one meeting with a supplier — an older, white man — who assumed she was an influencer at first glance and belittled her capability as a woman entrepreneur. “I think I just laughed and I was shocked by his statement, but he was putting down influencers, who are mostly women in this industry, so I thought that was very offensive,” she says. “He was judging me as though, in his mind, women are all influencers and questioning my capability and what I could accomplish.” 

Though Philips was caught off guard, she did not let the incident shake her confidence. “We launched one bra that came in three nude colors in June 2017,” she says. “That was the start of it.” In the years since, Philips has not only grown her brand but her community of women of color entrepreneurs, some of whom she works with to organize In Todo, an annual craft fair celebrating BIPOC entrepreneurs. 

“A lot of us have immigrant parents and different life experiences that make it easy to relate to each other,” Philips says. “I’ve found that community to be super helpful and I don’t think the business would be where it is today without that group of women. Literally, something goes wrong every day. If I need to find last-minute packaging, elastic, fabric — whatever it is — I can always reach out to some of these women I’ve met along this journey and know they have my back.”

Deconstructing the “Airbrushed” Fantasy

Since launching the inaugural Everyday Bralette ($59), Proclaim has expanded to include multiple styles of bras, underwear, and loungewear with a deliberate focus on representation and sustainability. “We always try to be representative of the inclusion we want to see in the fashion industry with everything that we do: using diverse models, using size-inclusive models, we don’t do any PhotoShopping,” Philips says. “I’m heartened that representation has become more common in the fashion industry, but I do think there’s still this airbrushed fantasy that’s out there that is not reality.”

“We want to show women as they are.”

With inclusivity at the forefront of their efforts as a brand, Philips and her team make a point of using models of different sizes and skin tones, hiring a diverse range of photographers, and collaborating with women of color as often as possible. “We want to show women as they are. I feel like a lot of this industry is [modeled] through the male gaze,” she says. “Victoria’s Secret and those ‘90s mall brands really perpetuated a lot of damage, and a lot of those companies are run by men. Having a company that’s for women, by women helps to change that.”

As a woman of color, Philips has also taken meticulous steps to ensure that Proclaim’s products are created as ethically and sustainably as possible. “I knew I wanted to create something that uplifted and supported communities of color while creating this product that was desperately needed. Globally, there’s a lot of exploitation of women of color,” she says. “Oftentimes, communities of color are exploited for cheap labor; their environments experience a lot of chemical dumping; they are experiencing the brunt end of the fashion industry; and the fashion industry isn’t even designing products for them.”

This harmful disconnect is often overlooked by larger clothing manufacturers in favor of keeping manufacturing costs as low as possible and turning a profit. Proclaim, however, aims to address this disconnect by putting the consumer and the environment first. Namely, Philips produces her products in the same city where she lives, allowing her the freedom to verify working conditions and the quality of the products before they reach consumers. 

Prioritizing Sustainability

“With sustainability, I feel like the people that experience the negative environmental impacts of the fashion industry are disproportionately communities of color, so we wanted to try to use fabrics and materials that had the least impact on the environment,” Philips adds. Though, she’s aware that even the most sustainable businesses — including her own — have room for improvement. “At the end of the day — this was hard for me when I started because you want to do everything perfectly — you realize that there’s an impact of every single fabric and fiber and there’s a plus and minus, so it’s about balancing that.” 

For Philips, this means taking a holistic approach to manufacturing. This includes responsibly managing water usage, minimizing microplastic production by consciously selecting natural-based fabrics, and using strategic designs to minimize textile waste. “I’m really excited that there’s been a lot of innovation with these bio-based materials, which are more scalable than organic cotton or some single natural fibers,” she says. “Most of our collection now is Tencel, which is a fabric that I really do love because it has that softness and longer durability than organic cotton. We’ve also used Cupro, which is made from a byproduct of cotton. We are launching socks for the first time and that’s made of Pima cotton, which is a long-grain cotton that’s grown in Peru, and that’s super soft.”