Should I Dress to Hide My Scars or Show Them Off?

I’m wholesome and lively, however my legs have a number of scars, together with a seven-inch incision from a current surgical procedure. I’m attending an occasion that asks individuals to put on cocktail apparel. My good clothes are all just under the knee or knee size. Do I put on pantyhose or exhibit all my scars, blemishes and different issues that come associated with life and age? — Susan, Del Mar, Calif.

In a world of Instagram filters, Photoshop, fillers, Botox, lasers and each different physique remedy below the solar, it may be stunning to have a look at your precise untouched self. Marks that when signaled a life properly lived — or adventurously lived, or dangerously lived, or joyfully lived; of ache skilled and conquered — can now appear a considerably embarrassing signal of damage and tear, or human frailty. And nobody needs to be giving worn-down vibes.

But there’s additionally energy in a refusal to cover. Jane Goodall, the primatologist, simply turned 90, and I liked seeing the celebrations of her life and the way she received to right here, a journey writ on her pores and skin. Just lately, Phoebe Philo featured a photograph within the advert marketing campaign for her new line that confirmed a close-up picture of a abdomen full with stretch marks. And I’ve at all times admired Padma Lakshmi’s willingness to indicate her scars, together with the seven-inch one on her higher arm from a automotive accident when she was a youngster.

That scar was entrance and middle final 12 months throughout her Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot. Afterward, she received lots of questions on why she hadn’t coated it up with make-up or airbrushed it away. “It’s what units me aside and makes me me, and even when somebody might wave a magic wand I actually don’t assume I’d select to eradicate my scar,” she said.

Which just about says all of it.

It additionally suggests to me that the pendulum could also be swinging away from plastic-y perfection. In spite of everything, once we erase our experiences from our our bodies, we lose greater than only a mark.

And the extra we see of such “flawed” photos offered not, actually, as flawed however as unremarkable, the extra our understanding of magnificence will modify and develop. I at all times consider the sculptor Marc Quinn’s series of heroic marble sculptures of the thalidomide generation, the British youngsters born with malformed or lacking limbs on account of an anti-nausea drug taken throughout being pregnant within the late Nineteen Fifties and early ’60s.

By treating their grownup selves with the identical appreciation Michelangelo reserved for his David, Mr. Quinn successfully modified the definition of who will get to be placed on a pedestal.

I do know it may be uncomfortable to be on the bleeding fringe of this form of motion, to be the one particular person in a room with strains in your brow, or stretch marks on the seashore, or a scar in your shin. And on the subject of seen scars, it’s important to be prepared to endure the questions you’ll in all probability get.

However the extra individuals confront others with their actuality, the extra we normalize what is definitely regular life, the higher for everybody. Additionally, you don’t have to fret about nylons or leg make-up or having to discover a new, longer skirt (or trousers). And on the very least, the scar is usually a speaking level.

My husband has an enormous scar on his knee from childhood, and at any time when anybody asks how he received it, he says “bear assault.” That isn’t truly true, nevertheless it’s a superb icebreaker.

All of which to say: Sure, you need to put on your scars with the identical pleasure you might put on a bag from the Row or Alaïa platforms. You’ve earned them.

Your Model Questions, Answered

Each week on Open Thread, Vanessa will reply a reader’s fashion-related query, which you’ll be able to ship to her anytime through email or Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed.