Here's one thing I didn't have on my 2024 bingo card – bonding with Winnie Harlow over our love for gaming. That's right, the Winnie Harlow. The fashion icon, entrepreneur, skincare brand founder and trailblazer for the vitiligo community.
She's conquered Victoria's Secret runways, fronted multiple magazine covers and is even the founder of her own beauty brand, Cay Skin. Her latest project? Entering the gaming space – and she's done it in the most iconic way possible. As it turns out, Winnie's teamed up with The Sims 4 – one of my favourite video games of all time – to introduce a much-awaited vitiligo skin feature in character creation mode.
"I think it’s so beautiful to be able to represent your true self in-game. This partnership is a powerful statement encouraging players to embrace what makes them unique – both in-game and in real life," she tells me over Zoom.
“I really worked for the little Winnie who'd never seen herself represented. And to have The Sims, a game that I used to play as a little girl, want me to be a part of this and making such a big change to allow everybody to feel represented was a real big honour,” she added.
Now reader, to say that I was thrilled to even be having this conversation with Winnie would be an understatement. Two of my worlds collided. The beauty journalist and the gamer, both desperately trying to contain their excitement. I know, sounds dramatic, but to me, this isn't just another feature added to your average video game.
Much like many of my fellow gamers, I have a very special relationship with The Sims franchise. In fact, I'd say that this game defined my early years as a gamer. As an introverted 12-year-old, I wanted the one thing that all teenage girls dreamt of – to grow up (fast).
That said, I didn't channel that in quite the same way as today's Drunk-Elephant-obsessed tweens do through their extensive skincare routines. Instead, I installed a simulation video game and created a character, who then of course ended up having a job, getting married, having kids and even being kidnapped by aliens (if you know, you know). Little did I know that The Sims would lead to a long-term love of video gaming, which then, in turn, led me to interviewing Winnie Harlow.
But having been a gamer for over a decade now, I've also discovered that one of the longest-running issues in the industry is the lack of diversity and representation that has echoed throughout, from the people in charge to character creation.
As someone who comes from a Central Asian background, I can confidently say that during the hundreds of times that I've played video games that involve creating my own character, there were only a handful when I actually succeeded in creating one that even remotely resembled the way I look. Whether it was the minimal range of skin tones, eye shapes, hair colours, height or body composition, there would be times when I found it near impossible to create a character, even while looking at my own picture side-by-side for comparison.
It wasn't so long until I noticed that some developers simply couldn't be bothered to invest time and effort into making character creation an inclusive experience. After all, it's all about the gameplay isn't it? I couldn't disagree more. The issue lies much deeper than simply limiting the possibility to create someone who looks like you. It's about letting the people of all ages feel represented without the need to “settle” for a character that you couldn't relate to.
27% worry about a real-life follow-up to the threats.
Winnie agrees. “There's no reason why there shouldn't be inclusivity. If we can have so much inclusivity in real life, there's no reason why we shouldn't have it in fantasy,” she says.
“One of the challenges that I've faced so much in my career is fighting against becoming a token or being a fad,” she shared. “I think whenever something new comes to the human eye, we tend to treat it as its own separate box. And I feel like that's how I was viewed for a very long time. As a type of model rather than just being a human being like everybody else.”
Winnie's collaboration with The Sims feels particularly important for the gaming community –proving that skin positivity shouldn't be cast aside as a lesser priority for developers.
For the uninitiated, The Sims also previously added features like body hair, acne, birthmarks, stretch marks, scars, and freckles to its character creation mode. And as Winnie pointed out to me: “[Vitiligo] has been very highly requested for a bit of time now.” I wasn't surprised.
A quick dive into a Reddit rabbit hole found dozens of threads in the r/TheSims4Mods subreddit, where people have been discussing vitiligo and finding workarounds through game mods (user-made features that are created and designed to either alter the gameplay or change the character's appearance).
When was the last time you saw a plus-size avatar? Exactly.
Winnie spoke about just how beautiful it will be for so many people who play The Sims on a regular basis to not only have the option to use the vitiligo feature on their own characters, but to “also have them see their neighbour have vitiligo, and it becoming the norm.”
“If I was able to talk to my younger self, I think I would just cry," she said. "I would tell her to never give up, and that even on your lowest days, remember that there's always a brighter future. And I would have loved to be able to show her this as that brighter future.”
How does the vitiligo feature work in The Sims 4?
If you want to check out The Sims' new vitiligo feature, you can download the latest free update for The Sims 4 Base Game, available from February 13th. You can use the feature in Create-A-Sim and apply it to Sims of all ages, from infants to elders. There are 61 different vitiligo variants to choose from, all of which show different levels of coverage and symmetry and can also change according to each skin tone.
As part of Winnie's collaboration with Sims 4, you can also download a 'Simified' version of the fashion model’s Hollywood home from the gallery and even play with the Sim that was inspired by Winnie.
For more from Glamour UK Beauty Commerce Writer Denise Primbet, follow her on Twitter @deniseprimbet and Instagram @deniseprimbet.
