I feel sexier now, says Pamela Anderson, 56, who decided to ditch makeup

Pamela Anderson has done some “life things” as she calls it. No longer strictly an object of teenage fantasies, she has become a seasoned version of the girl next door — albeit with much more charm.

“I’m enjoying the process of getting older,” Anderson, 56, said in a video call late last week. “The things that are happening to my face — some of the elasticity is going away — I’m finding humor in it.” She continued, “I feel sexier now that I have some secrets and a little mystery. We don’t learn that until later in our lives.”

The call was about their new campaign for Re/Done, a denim brand that practices sustainability through processes like upcycling. His image, released on Monday (11), shows Anderson smiling and playing her sun-bleached waves in items like embellished miniskirts, bell-bottom jeans, baby tees and denim jackets. She described the pieces, priced from US$175 to US$595 (approximately R$870 to R$2,970), as “clothes that in the 90s I would have worn to the supermarket.”

The youthful clothing in the “Re/Done & Pam” campaign, Anderson said, is “tied to a lot of great memories from my golden years.” But there’s not much in the image to suggest CJ Parker, his pneumatically contoured character in “Baywatch” (or “SOS Malibu,” as he became known in Brazil), frolicking in a red swimsuit on the beach.

For the campaign, Anderson insisted that the concept be on her terms — or “authentic,” as she put it in her relaxed, soft way — “and with much more meaning than just a financial gain, or just putting a face on a brand”.

“I wanted something raw, no makeup,” she said, noting that this is a look she’s adopted at Paris Fashion Week and in Hollywood, at events like this year’s Vanity Fair Oscar party.

While the campaign may not have drawn inspiration from her “Baywatch” era, participating in it transported Anderson back to that period in her life when she was married to Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and raising her sons Brandon, now 27. , and Dylan, now 26.

“I think this collection represents a great capsule of my life at that time,” Anderson said. “I was working and I felt invincible.”

At the time, many people hoped to capitalize on her work and her stature as a pop idol, a push that spawned a steady profusion of merchandise, including a “Baywatch Barbie,” a Pammy soda, and prepaid calling cards.

But since then she has focused on reclaiming her personal brand. In 2022, Anderson made her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart, the much-exploited chorister, in “Chicago.” Last year, she published “Love, Pamela,” a memoir interspersed with poetry — written by her — and starred in a Netflix documentary, “Pamela, A Love Story,” which she co-produced with her eldest son (who also helped mentoring her mother when she was starting her vegan skincare line, Sonsie Skin).

Most recently, she finished shooting “The Last Showgirl,” a film from director Gia Coppola in which Anderson appears as a dancer in her 50s looking to reinvent herself and pondering where life will take her next.

She knows the film has parallels to her own story. Going makeup-free, as she does most days, is, in a metaphorical sense, “a way of peeling back the layers of my life,” she said. “I’m left with a blank canvas right now, in the starting position for the next chapter.”

This chapter, he added, “will be even better, now that I no longer have to pretend to be something I’m not.”