Why skin positivity is having a bumpy ride

My immediate review coming out of yesterday’s screening of Marty Supreme was, “And he goes out with Kylie Jenner.” Admittedly, I’m no great critic, because I always have an absolutely lovely time at the cinema, middle-centre seat, little snacks, that gorgeous dilated darkness, and so I tend to enjoy whatever art or muck is being shown, as I think is correct when you’re in a literal velvet chair. But yes, my reaction to this movie after the awe had settled was: a) I want a well-sourced reported essay on their relationship, focusing on themes such as ambition, transformation, horniness and “the gaze” by end of play and, then b) Chalamet’s skin.

On a Vogue podcast, his co-star Gwyneth Paltrow said that when she noticed the acne scarring on his cheeks, “I was like, ‘Oh, you know, you can do microneedling for that.’” This is the aesthetic procedure that involves rolling hundreds of tiny needles over the face – dermatologists recommend between three and six sessions to smooth light scarring, at around £200 a session. But, Paltrow added, “He’s like, ‘This is makeup!’”

Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, an expert ping-pong player on the Lower East Side in 1952, for which he wore a unibrow, vision-degrading contact lenses and an uncanny prosthetic along his jawline complete with acne scars. And I was unprepared for how much the sight of pockmarks would move me, blown up to 60ft tall and lit like a landscape, or lake.

There was a brief moment last year when a “skin positivity” movement appeared to be starting to successfully address the shame and labour attached to imperfect skin. It encouraged women to re-evaluate their relationship with their faces and for the media to normalise acne and stretch marks and facial hair and eczema, and for a second that seemed possible. It did! It seemed possible that self-worth need not be linked to the smoothness of our skin, that we might unlearn the magazine lessons of our porous youth. It seemed possible too, no, important, to walk outside right now without first applying serum, moisturiser, primer, foundation and concealer, and attack the world with a bare and reddened face.

Of course, that moment passed. Rather than reflecting and embracing difference, online beauty standards have fixed themselves now at taut perfection – trend forecasters saw interest in “Glass Skin” (skin so smooth it reflects light) grow 253% during 2025, with on average 41,000 searches a month.

And while the death of body positivity in the wake of weight-loss drugs may have felt shocking, the failed skin positivity movement, I think, especially alongside the evolution of technology, both aesthetic and iPhone, is less surprising. Partly because while dieting is acknowledged as being challenging, skincare, framed sensually in the language of ritual and treats, is sold as pleasure. Still, it’s an awful shame. Not only would a belated acceptance of our own and others’ imperfect skin save everybody reams of anxiety, money, frustration, abuse and time, it would usher in some of the progress and inclusivity we promised our children. Instead, as in many other chapters of our narrowing lives, all that stuff is being abruptly dismantled, right before our eyes.

Chalamet’s prosthetic acne scars added depth to his performance, but if they’d been real, I have absolutely no doubt he would have covered them up on the red carpet, right? With the mystery of his relationship with Kylie still pulsing at my temples, his false skin reminded me of her sister Kim Kardashian’s recent foray (through her shapewear company Skims) into the headline-grabbing merchandising of merkins. Pubic wigs, to be worn over lasered vulvas (£34). In the same way that prosthetic acne brings the illusion of vulnerability and authenticity to a character, so does a full polyester bush, just as long as it’s attached to a pencil-thin G-string, and crucially, just as long as it’s removable – the skin beneath must remain smooth as a ping-pong ball.

A funny thing happens when you mess with bodies, which is that the fake addition forces us to look more closely at our relationship with the real. And sometimes the distance or distortion allows us to see beauty in something we’d been trained to find obscene. Until – the moment passes, the lights come up, and we’re right back where we started, blinking into the afternoon.

Photograph by A24/Courtesy Everett Collection/Alamy