Progress in Practice

For most of the last few decades, intimates advertising had a clear and consistent message: if you don't look like this, lingerie is not for you. The target market was a specific woman: tall, thin, and seductive in a very particular way. Everything else was a begrudged size extension— until a handful of brands decided that lingerie is for every body and inclusivity in fashion should be the norm.

Nala launched with a straightforward premise: real bodies, real sizing, real diversity. That sounds simple, but most brands avoid doing it consistently because it changes the whole shopping interface. It is not a one-off campaign theme that appears once and disappears when the feed moves on— it is the default imagery, the sizing language, the way products are explained, and the way customers are expected to find their fit without feeling like they are the problem.

In 2017, Fenty Beauty launched with a foundation range most brands had avoided for years. It entered the market with shades that covered a far wider spectrum of skin tones than was typical at the time. That did more than fill a gap in one product category; it exposed a quiet design choice in beauty retail. Up to that point, many brands had simply decided that darker complexions were not worth the investment.

Retail is shifting. Customers judge brands by what the in store experience signals, not what the brand claims online. Retailers can make thoughtful changes, but without an independent benchmark those changes are hard to communicate and easy to dismiss as performative. That gap is exactly what Index:MH is here to close.

Beauty marketing has taught us to trust an illusion. To aim for the kind of perfection that doesn’t exist outside a screen: skin without pores, faces without texture, smiles without lines. Images that convince us that real faces need fixing. Until CVS Pharmacy decided to break that spell.