Pamela Anderson has been celebrated on social media for ditching the makeup and embracing a completely fresh-faced look, even while rubbing shoulders with the fashion elite.
The Baywatch actress and activist was photographed in a bright yellow, ankle-length dress while attending the Isabel Marant Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 show during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday.
While she definitely made a solid argument for keeping bright colours in wardrobes even as we transition into the autumn months, it was less about what she was wearing and more about what she wasn’t that has got people talking online.
Pamela revealed exactly why she had stopped wearing makeup for a particularly bittersweet reason recently. She told Elle Magazine in August that she decided to swap her signature looks after she lost her makeup artist, Alexis Vogel, to breast cancer.
“She was the best,” she told the magazine. “And since then, I just felt, without Alexis, it’s just better for me not to wear makeup.”
Pamela described the experience of being makeup-free as “freeing, and fun, and a little rebellious too.”
Now she’s advocating for other women to do the same.
“I think we all start looking a little funny when we get older,” she said. “And I’m kind of laughing at myself when I look at the mirror. I go, ‘Wow, this is really…what’s happening to me?’ It’s a journey.”
She shared that changing her personal brand has been “rebellious,” but it’s something she said helped her get to “a good place.”
Pamela has rocked similarly fresh-faced looks at other fashion shows recently, including The Row’s runway show at Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday and at the Proenza Schouler show earlier this month during New York Fashion Week.
While other celebrities have ditched makeup in the past, it’s refreshing to see a star attend such a glamorous event without the war paint on – and fans on social media have been quick to praise Pamela.
One fan on X (the app formerly known as Twitter) wrote, “People expect people to look 20 forever. She looks good for her age.”
While another added, “She looks different but so pretty and so happy.”
Pamela isn’t the only celebrity speaking out about her changing perception of makeup and beauty.
Gwen Stefani recently spoke to People magazine and said about putting on makeup, “It’s part of [me] putting the armour on and getting ready to do what I do and be that version of me. It’s really therapeutic because it’s very artful. I will listen to the gospel, [say] my prayers, and then I put my makeup on. It’s just this whole process that goes into getting on the stage.”
The singer, however, admitted that it’s “harder” to feel pretty as you get older.
This was reflected in a final comment on social media, when one fan wrote of Pamela’s look, “The cyclical irony of makeup is women are expected to always wear it. It deteriorates their dermis, then they’re criticised for NOT wearing makeup.”
Could Pamela Anderson be one of the gamechangers slowly breaking this vicious cycle?