Inspired by Pamela Anderson, I went to a glamorous event not wearing any makeup

When images of Pamela Anderson’s nude face at Paris Fashion Week came up on my social media feed late last year, I was shocked. Not only did she look just like yoga-teaching me, who gets ready for work by moisturising, cleaning her teeth and putting her hair in a “jogging ponytail”. What rocked my world was realising how out of date my attitudes were around how women should look in high-stakes social environments.

Kate Bell modelling for Herskind at Copenhagen Fashion Week in August 2024.Credit: Launchmetrics Spotlight

Until that moment, my unquestioned view was that for women to be appropriate, acceptable and taken seriously, make-up was a must. Pamela’s defiance of social norms ripped the bandaid quickly off my absurd and dated beliefs.

Desperate for more detail, I needed to see make-up-free Pamela in motion. I trawled YouTube and sat fixated, watching her prep for the Vivienne Westwood show. “I’m not trying to be the prettiest girl in the room,” Pamela said in her Marilyn-esque voice.

I watched her with intensity. I registered 1990s over-plucked eyebrows unashamedly unfilled-in, freckles and sunspots on clear, fair, shiny skin. Not a skerrick of make-up. “How novel,” I thought. “How brilliant! How punk!” I was among those who cheered her bravery.

Then my hurrahs fell flat because to call a woman brave for not wearing make-up in big-time social scenarios is to unwittingly accept the idea that it’s fundamental for women to wear make-up in such settings.

Pamela Anderson at the Vivienne Westwood Spring/Summer 2024 show as part of Paris Fashion Week.Credit: Getty Images

As women, do our self-presentation ideals – wanting to look young and pretty using make-up and any other means possible – stem from a class system? If you were wealthy, you were clean, and clean equalled pretty and socially acceptable. Plus, pretty young women have always had the chance to “marry up”. (Oh, hi Cinderella!)

Is there a connection to thousands of years of patriarchy, with its sidelining of wise older women and celebration of women who are young and fertile? The same patriarchy that’s ushered in a male-dominated advertising industry that has successfully filled our heads with ageist madness, selling us a whole load of misogynistic baloney.

The saying “If you can’t see it, you can’t be it” absolutely applied to me. I can honestly say that until Pamela’s Paris moment, the option to go make-up-free in elevated social situations wasn’t something I’d twigged to. However, now that I had, I was intrigued.

As a woman in my 50s, I pride myself on taking calculated risks and endeavouring to walk my own path through life. The first event I “did a Pamela” at was a swishy sit-down dinner for an upmarket skincare brand. Beauty editors, beauty writers and big-wig beauty peeps were out in force.

I won’t lie, there were moments when my lack of make-up made me feel undone, graceless, not part of the elegant team.

I had come off a massive working day, shooting the front, side and back of garments repeatedly, and I was tired and running late when fresh-faced Pamela came to mind. Feeling both audacious and intrepid, I used a skin polish on my face in the shower, moisturised, layered on two types of face cream, curled my lashes and applied a matte lip balm. Smoothing my hair back behind my ears, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was no longer late.

One of the silver linings to ageing is that we have our life tools in place. Positive self-coaching when I feel nervous is now routine for me. But at the glamorous soirée, I won’t lie, there were moments when my lack of make-up made me feel undone, graceless, not part of the elegant team. Each time I kindly reminded myself: “I have nothing to prove or hide. I was invited here.”

There are decades of images out there of me modelling wearing make-up, but tonight was the first time I came without embellishment. I came as me.

Analysing the evening later, it was fascinating to me that my feelings of being “properly presented” hinged on being made up. But not all of my experience that night was challenging. There was also a welcome feeling of liberation that came from choosing to swim against the beauty current and have my bare-faced cheek witnessed by my peers.

This solid non-judgment towards myself, my actions and how I looked was an incredible boost to my self-confidence. And, I thought to myself, at the global level in which Pamela did her thing, she must have felt tremendously powerful.

Towards the end of the evening, a very sweet beauty writer’s visceral response to my forfeiting make-up had me giggling with glee. He sat down directly across from me, put both elbows on the table, dropped his chin onto his hands, and stared at my face. With positive, smiling eyes and awe in his voice, he said, “Do you really have no make-up on?” I nodded, feeling like someone Vivienne Westwood would have been proud of.

Something I’ve found as I move towards my seventh decade is that self-presentation is no longer about looking pretty. To be brutally honest, there’s not a lot of pretty left after the age of 50. The alternative is to celebrate what we have. I’ve found this brings gratitude, contentment and greater self-confidence. When the aim isn’t “pretty” any more, putting yourself together becomes exploratory self-expression.

Get the best of Sunday Life magazine delivered to your inbox every Sunday morning. Sign up here for our free newsletter.