Here is one factor I did not have on my 2024 bingo card – bonding with Winnie Harlow over our love for gaming. That is proper, the Winnie Harlow. The trend icon, entrepreneur, skincare model founder and trailblazer for the vitiligo group.

She’s conquered Victoria’s Secret runways, fronted a number of journal covers and is even the founding father of her personal magnificence model, Cay Pores and skin. Her newest undertaking? Coming into the gaming area – and she or he’s executed it in probably the most iconic means potential. Because it seems, Winnie’s teamed up with The Sims 4 – considered one of my favorite video video games of all time – to introduce a much-awaited vitiligo pores and skin characteristic in character creation mode.

“I believe it’s so stunning to have the ability to signify your true self in-game. This partnership is a strong assertion encouraging gamers to embrace what makes them distinctive – each in-game and in actual life,” she tells me over Zoom.

“I actually labored for the little Winnie who’d by no means seen herself represented. And to have The Sims, a recreation that I used to play as a bit lady, need me to be part of this and making such a giant change to permit all people to really feel represented was an actual large honour,” she added.

Now reader, to say that I used to be thrilled to even be having this dialog with Winnie can be an understatement. Two of my worlds collided. The magnificence journalist and the gamer, each desperately making an attempt to include their pleasure. I do know, sounds dramatic, however to me, this is not simply one other characteristic added to your common online game.

Very similar to a lot of my fellow players, I’ve a really particular relationship with The Sims franchise. In truth, I would say that this recreation outlined my early years as a gamer. As an introverted 12-year-old, I wished the one factor that every one teenage ladies dreamt of – to develop up (quick).

That stated, I did not channel that in fairly the identical means as at present’s Drunk-Elephant-obsessed tweens do by means of their in depth skincare routines. As an alternative, I put in a simulation online game and created a personality, who then after all ended up having a job, getting married, having youngsters and even being kidnapped by aliens (if , ). Little did I do know that The Sims would result in a long-term love of video gaming, which then, in flip, led me to interviewing Winnie Harlow.

However having been a gamer for over a decade now, I’ve additionally found that one of many longest-running points within the business is the shortage of range and illustration that has echoed all through, from the folks in cost to character creation.