This photo shows President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama before they welcome India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur to the State Dinner at the White House. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)

Nude is common term in fashion, but when Michelle Obama wore, in the words of designer Naeem Khan, a "sterling-silver sequin, abstract floral, nude strapless gown" to a state dinner at the White House — and it was reported as such — that sparked questions about the definition of nude and its relation, if any, to the wearer's skin colour.

The Associated Press called Obama's dress colour "flesh" and got immediate retorts: "Whose flesh?" one newspaper editor asked. "Not hers." The description was revised to "champagne."

"We talk of nude now, and there is no one colour. It's politically incorrect," says Gale Epstein, creative director and co-founder of undergarment brand Hanky Panky. "There is a wide range for skin-tone colours. Human skin tones are a whole colour palette unto themselves."

Epstein says she realized years ago that the brand would need a full range of skin-tone shades. The middle ground of Hanky Panky's dozen or so neutrals is probably taupe, which falls somewhere between the very light chai, which is also the bestseller, and the much darker espresso.

A broad colour category

Designer Pamella Roland, best known for her eveningwear, also treats nude as a broad colour category. "Nudes are a group of elegant shades, but there are a lot of specific shades," she says. "I can't describe a single specific colour for nude."

That champagne-sand hue, though, is usually what the word is used to describe in fashion shows, stores and the pages of fashion magazines. A quick search for "nude" in the online colour finder for Pantone, the company that largely sets colour-formula standards for fashion and home-goods manufacturing, turns up a light beige.

It's not unprecedented for colour names to change with the tastes of society. In the 1960s, for example, Crayola changed its flesh colour -- which resembled white skin -- to peach. The company attributes the switch on its website at least partially to the civil rights movement.

Nude as a term is too generic at this point, says Epstein. "When you find the right colour name, it means more to the customer. It's more literal."

At the high-fashion house of Calvin Klein, which favours a neutral palette, colour names are more specific than "nude" and used as internal shorthand. While the sometimes esoteric labels can be a guessing game for the fashion insiders at its runway show — "ether," a light silver, was a favourite for spring — they mostly keep the production team from getting confused, explains women's creative director Francisco Costa.

Celebrity stylist David Zyla breaks down the nude spectrum into five categories — whites, pinks, yellows, beiges and browns — and offers more than 30 narrowed-down names, including porcelain, tawny beige and toasted golden brown.

"There is nothing on a woman more beautiful than having them wear their essence or skin tone," says Zyla, author of The Color of Style. "It's about the woman and this drape of fabric around her, not about a jewelled collar or puffed sleeve or big skirt."

Roland says she considers nude a range of shades, and loves working with the palette.

"Colours are loud. Nudes are a soft whisper — a sexy and elegant whisper. Nude allows a woman to wear her dress instead of the dress wearing her. It's very elegant."

The woman who wears nude is suggesting what might be underneath, expressing "her most basic self," Zyla says. And perhaps that's why changing the name — or using many — makes sense.

"We're in a place in fashion where women are wanting to express their own unique selves," Zyla says. "This array of essence colours is very individual."