Perfection Is a Dream. Real Beauty Has Flaws.

This personal reflection is part of a series called Turning Points, in which writers explore what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead. You can read more by visiting the Turning Points series page.

Turning Point: In April, Vogue Philippines featured on its cover the 106-year-old Indigenous tattoo artist Apo Whang-Od, the oldest person to appear on the magazine’s front page.

The fashion show was in full swing: beautiful young women walking down the catwalk in sparkly dresses as the sun set beyond the ramparts of Spilberk Castle in the Moravia region of the Czech Republic. It was a recent summer evening, warm in the way such nights are after a scorching day. I sat, sipping my champagne and feeling no pain at being a spectator instead of a participant. I was not here to model. I didn’t have to look perfect.

I noted the uncomfortable high-heeled shoes, the hip-swinging gait with knees lifted high and precisely placed feet that always reminds me of dressage horses, the slight sheen of sweat on the otherwise impeccable faces. This was a degree of perfection rarely seen in nature. It was almost as if an Instagram filter — one that conjured large, slightly tilted eyes, tiny noses, plump lips and perfect skin — had blanketed the show and spawned 20 perfect copies.

There was a uniformity here from which my eyes simply slid off, like raw eggs on glass. I know I don’t look like them — anymore.

At 58 years of age, every time I pick up my phone or iPad, I’m at first confronted by my own face in reflection, seen from below — the most unattractive angle for an aging woman, as my skin sags helplessly toward my feet. And then, as a cruel comparison, I scroll through my social media feed and am bombarded by images of perfect women: smooth skin, high cheekbones, childishly small noses and large eyes. Occasionally, there is a bona fide old lady thrown into the mix. But there is no acknowledgment of actual aging. It’s as if you go through life being young, then disappear and later resurface as a crone.

On the internet, filters can fix your age cheaply and instantly. In real life, doctors can do it at a cost of assets and time. Aging doesn’t really exist online. Nor does homeliness. Who would want to post a photo of themselves looking anything but perfect?

Well, me.

This is not because of an abundance of self-confidence. In fact, it’s almost the opposite. I battle my reflection — in the mirror, on an iPad, on any reflective surface — daily. I see the wrinkles and the hooded eyes and the impending jowls, and I think, “Who is that woman?” I have the means and the time to rectify these things in a doctor’s office. So why haven’t I?

I started modeling at the age of 15. I was supposed to be a prototype of a woman you wanted to look like. Even though I was a girl and not a woman yet, deeply insecure and with features that were hardly an accomplishment, I made a lot of money and built a long career based on that very quality. Women were encouraged to compare themselves to me, and then go out and buy whatever product I was selling to look more like me. But while they were busy comparing themselves to me, I was also being compared to other models, to other prototypes of femininity.

Being told in great detail about my flaws came with my job. I found out that my knees were chubby, my hips were too slim, my nose veered to the right if seen from above, and my left eye was more hooded than the right one. And that’s just for starters.

Turns out, when compared with perfection, all of us will fail. But it also turns out that perfection is boring.

In fact, as I scroll through my Instagram feed, I find myself drawn to the so-called elements of imperfection: interesting noses, juicy stomachs and thighs, and, sadly, wrinkles, as though wrinkles are a skin condition rather than a map of life.

I go on social media to connect. Don’t we all? We look for reflections of ourselves, so we can compare and find our space in society. Inevitably, that also makes us admire or envy, and those are feelings that can distance us.

When I was judged perfect, I was envied, looked up to, but also seen as unrelatable. I was on top of the mountain where everyone else wanted to be, believing the view was the reward of the climb. And sure, the view was great. But mostly, it was lonely and pretty windy. I could wave at you, and you could wave back. Or give me the finger. At that distance, I could barely tell the difference anyway.

Maybe this is why I no longer wish to be seen as perfect. Perfection isolates you. What connects me to others are vulnerabilities. I’ve found that failures connect us far better than accomplishments. So, I offer up my own.

That day, at Spilberk Castle, the young women walking down the runway before me were beautiful. But none had any distinguishing characteristics, any flaws. I couldn’t tell one from another. They were sparkly objects being offered on an assembly line. I remembered once seeing a composite image of a fictional woman, wherein the features of many beautiful women had been mashed into one apparently perfect face. It was utterly unmemorable.

But I was not at this event to be part of the sparkly assembly line. I was there because I wrote a book of personal essays. And I was asked to write that book because I dared to do the unthinkable: to present myself as less than perfect on social media.

I smiled, conscious that I was simultaneously lifting my impending jowls and creating more wrinkles. I was intensely aware of being the older woman looking her age amid this crowd of perfection. I may no longer have been the shiny object at the center of all attention on that catwalk, but I was on a very different path, one illuminated by the experiences and truths I gleaned only after the glamour faded and the spotlight shifted.

I may no longer represent the ideal prototype of a young woman, but I don’t aspire to. I finally look like the person I have been on the inside all along, one of flaws and complexity. My age has rendered me imperfect, and as such, relatable and real. Why would I ever want to filter that?

Paulina Porizkova is an author and former model.