Most people use Halloween as a chance to become someone else. Dita Von Teese uses it to un-become herself.
Each year, the burlesque icon known for her flawless vintage glamour—porcelain skin, red lips, jet-black hair—dresses up as her alter ego “Dina,” a tanned, blonde, glossed-over version of herself. She calls it “normal girl drag.” And while it’s cheeky and theatrical, it also reveals something quietly radical about beauty, identity, and how much of ourselves we curate without realizing it.
What happens when we wear the opposite of what feels like home? For Dita, it’s about exposure. Her signature style is so integrated into how she moves through the world that changing it shifts not only how she feels, but how people respond to her. When she looks like “Dina,” she’s unrecognizable, overlooked, invisible. The confidence she’s spent years constructing gets peeled away with the red lipstick reflecting how much of our identity is built not just on what we wear, but on how we are seen—and how we use that gaze to move through the world. And maybe most importantly, it raises the question: Are you wearing your makeup—or is it wearing you?
Whether you’re barefaced, brushed up, or somewhere in between, there’s power in asking what your look does for you. Does it center you? Disguise you? Amplify or quiet something in you?
Beauty can be a costume, a ritual, a rebellion, or a return. The key is knowing why you choose what you choose. Because even the most “effortless” look takes effort. Even “nude” is a style choice.
Try this:
Wear a look that’s not your default.
Take note of how people treat you.
Take note of how you treat yourself.
There’s wisdom in the contrast. And maybe the most honest version of you isn’t the one with or without makeup—but the one who’s asking the deeper questions behind it.