.png)
From actor Vijay Varma to model Winnie Harlow, meet the artists using their skin as a canvas, not a flaw
MMS Staff
25 Jun 2025
5-min read
There’s something strange about growing up in a world that teaches you to fear your own skin.
Not the metaphorical kind. The literal, surface-level, look-in-the-mirror-every-day kind.
In a world obsessed with “flawless” skin, what happens when your skin tells a different story?
Vitiligo, a condition that causes the skin to lose pigment in patches, affects roughly 1 per cent of the global population. And yet, it remains misunderstood, stigmatised, or, worse, erased. But that silence is breaking, and it’s breaking beautifully.
Across film, fashion, TikTok, and spoken word, a growing wave of creators with vitiligo are refusing to shrink themselves to fit narrow standards of beauty. They’re not just embracing their skin, they’re turning it into art, activism, poetry, and power.
This World Vitiligo Day, we spotlight five powerful voices who are changing what representation looks like, one unapologetic patch at a time.
Vijay Varma: Not a secret, not a statement... just his skin
Vijay Varma didn’t write a heartfelt Instagram caption about his vitiligo. He didn’t break the internet with a skin-positive photoshoot. He just mentioned it, casually, in an interview.
“I used to worry when I was out of work,” he said. “Wondering if this condition would become a hurdle.” That’s it. No drama. No pity. Just a plain and simple bit of truth from someone in one of the world’s most appearance-obsessed industries.
Vitiligo, for the uninitiated, causes patches of skin to lose their pigment. In showbiz, where continuity matters and faces are the product, even minor differences can be exaggerated into “problems.”
So yes, Vijay covers his vitiligo while filming, not out of shame, but because he wants people to focus on the character, not the skin.
But off-screen? He’s never hidden it. And that choice, to just exist with it, without apology, is revolutionary.
In a world that often demands people with visible differences to either hide or turn into “inspiration,” Varma offers a third way: live, work, thrive, and let your skin be skin.
Amara Aleman: Her skin became the canvas she needed
Amara Aleman used to do everything she could to hide her vitiligo.
Long sleeves in summer. Thick makeup. Staying indoors. Silence. That’s what living with vitiligo looked like for her when she was first diagnosed in 2017. She was isolated, anxious, and unsure if she'd ever feel comfortable in her own skin again.
Then one day, she stopped trying to blend in... and started painting out.
Amara, who now has over 300K followers on TikTok, is best known for turning her vitiligo patches into vibrant works of art. She calls them her “ArtSpots”, the lighter parts of her skin where pigment is missing. And she doesn’t just fill them in. She builds whole worlds on them.
From floral patterns to Pride flag palettes, her body becomes a living, breathing canvas. She uses tattoo cover-up and body paint not to erase her skin, but to draw attention to it... on her own terms.
The shift wasn’t just cosmetic. It was psychological. “Once I saw how positively it was affecting others with the condition,” she says, “the ideas really flourished.”
What started as survival has now become art, community, and representation. In a world that says, “cover up,” Amara’s response is: watch me glow.
Saja Kilani: A love letter to the skin she once tried to erase
When Saja Kilani was younger, she hated her vitiligo.
It made her feel different. Visible in the wrong ways. So she did what many people do when their skin doesn’t fit the beauty standard... she tried to change it. Specifically, through medical tattooing, a process meant to recolour the skin and blend the patches back in.
It didn’t work.
And years later, instead of hiding from that experience, Saja wrote a poem about it.
‘Dear Vitiligo’ isn’t just a poem. It’s a turning point. In it, the Palestinian-Jordanian-Canadian actress speaks directly to the skin she once rejected. It’s tender, powerful, and painful.
It’s also necessary.
In the accompanying film, Saja collaborates with a makeup artist and photographer not to hide her vitiligo, but to showcase it. Her patches are painted around, highlighted, celebrated. For once, she controls the lens.
The most unexpected reaction came from her cousin’s eight-year-old daughter. After watching the video, the little girl said: “I wish I had vitiligo too.”
For Saja, that moment felt like closure.
Today, she isn’t just reclaiming her skin. She’s offering language, softness, and agency to others who might still be in hiding.
Her message is simple: “You can choose whether your condition is your insecurity. Or not.”
Winnie Harlow: Done being the “Model with Vitiligo”
Winnie Harlow’s story has been told a hundred times. But rarely on her terms.
Yes, she has vitiligo. Yes, she was bullied as a kid. Yes, she became the first person with the condition to walk the Victoria’s Secret runway, to front major campaigns, to appear on magazine covers.
But if you listen to her, that’s not the part she wants to be known for.
“I’ve lived a full life,” she says. “And honestly, I’ve dealt with way worse things than my skin.”
Still, the world wants her to play a specific role: the girl who overcame adversity to become beautiful. She’s over it.
Winnie credits her Jamaican upbringing, especially her mother, for giving her the confidence to exist in a world that told her she didn’t fit. That confidence carried her through bullying, rejection, and eventually into fashion and entrepreneurship.
After suffering a severe sunburn on a photoshoot (because no one wanted sunscreen to “ruin” the shot), she created Cay Skin, a brand built for skin like hers: melanin-rich, sensitive, often ignored by the mainstream.
Winnie’s goal now is to stop being “the model with vitiligo.” She wants to write children’s books. To build brands. To create spaces for Black women to lead.
As she puts it: “My skin has been one of my greatest gifts. It taught me to be louder, prouder, and to see beyond my own cover, and everyone else’s too.”
What Is Vitiligo? And why does it matter?
Vitiligo is a chronic condition where the skin loses melanin, the pigment responsible for colour. It can affect any part of the body: face, hands, scalp, and even the inside of the mouth.
The cause is still unclear, but researchers believe it’s linked to autoimmune responses, genetics, and environmental triggers. And while it isn’t dangerous, the emotional impact -thanks to society’s obsession with uniform skin - can be deep and lasting.
Which is why stories like these matter.
This is what representation really looks like
The people featured in this piece aren’t brave despite their skin; they’re powerful with it.
They’re not here to inspire you for pity likes. They’re showing up to expand the frame of what’s seen as beautiful, desirable, professional, and worthy.
They’re creators. Models. Actors. Entrepreneurs.
They’re also - sometimes - people who’ve cried in bathrooms, dodged stares, or tried to disappear.
But today, they are choosing to be visible.
And in doing so, they’re making space for all of us to show up in our full, imperfect glory too.
If you’ve ever felt different because of your skin, your body, your face, this is your reminder: your story is not a flaw. It’s a feature. Let it be seen.
Much much relate? Share it now!