Chandra Scott Interview
Behind the Scars
Fashion has long forgotten about scars when it comes to ‘body diversity’. Bridget Devine speaks to fashion model Chandra Scott about scoliosis surgery, ASOS campaigns and what makes body scars beautiful.25th November 2024
Bridget Devine © Photographed by Karma Casto
Recently, when scrolling through Instagram I saw a post from Perfect Magazine about Olivia Munn, an American actress and model, starring in the latest Skims campaign as a breast cancer survivor. She told Today that she was hired simply to model ‘their shapewear and their new leggings’ but ended up spontaneously showing off her double mastectomy scars as ‘they were really hard to cover up’ and she is ‘done being insecure about (her) scars’. This is one of the only recent fashion campaigns, in mainstream media, that actively displays body scars, and is inherently authentic while still fitting the mold of Kim Kardashian’s magic marketing Skims campaigns.
Of course, one of the first female activists for the representation of scars in the fashion industry is Katie Piper. Following an acid attack from an ex boyfriend Piper went on to be a true trailblazer in awareness around domestic abuse and taught a young generation of girls, like myself, to be proud of our scars. When Piper was awarded an OBE for her charity work in 2022, she told Harper's Bazaar that when regaining her self confidence, ‘clothes have been a big part of expressing myself and my identity’. Scars are simply the physical marks left from physically painful experiences, whether it’s from physical abuse in Piper’s case or breast cancer treatment, like Munn’s, the importance of scars is in the stories of strength and resilience that they tell. ‘The mind can be a desperate, dark prison, but it can also be a tower of strength’, Piper goes on to talk about the mental toll of not just the trauma she survived but the appearance of her scars too. Many women in fashion and figures in the public eye have scars but are less open to talk about them or show them to the world. Angelina Jolie, Serena Williams and Kate Winslet all have c-section scars while Tina Fey, Miles Teller and Queen Latifah all have facial scars, yet the industry doesn’t spread awareness around these scars at all. American Gen-Z celebs like Kylie Jenner and Selena Gomez both have scars on their legs that they proudly show off on social media, but no magazine or brand has ever decided to highlight the scars despite their infinite media campaigns.
Surely it’s time we start to hold the fashion industry accountable for this lack of diversity and representation? The question is, is it enough?
I’m sure most of us watched Princess Eugenie’s fairytale wedding in 2018, when she wore an open-back ivory wedding gown by Peter Pilotto and Christopher de Vos, which beautifully presented her scoliosis surgery scar to the flashing cameras outside St George’s Chapel, Windsor. This was the first time her scar, or any scoliosis scar for that matter, received this level of nationwide media coverage. Scoliosis is a spinal condition/deformity that causes an ‘S’-shaped curvature of the spine, which often progresses and becomes a more severe angle if left untreated, so like many teenage girls Princess Eugenie underwent a surgical spinal fusion at the age of 12 and in doing so leaving her with a lengthy scar down her spine.
Around 3% of the UK population have scoliosis, with 75% being girls according to the UK Scoliosis Clinic. The clinic also says ballet dancers and gymnasts are up to 12 times more likely to develop the condition, which might explain why I developed the condition in my teenage years. Both myself and my younger sister, yes unfortunately it can be genetic too, both had scoliosis before we then went on to receive spinal fusion surgery to fix it. I had my operation relatively later than most, at the age of 16, while my sister had hers at just age 13. It is probably one of the most physically challenging experiences I will ever have to go through, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Chandra Scott is a fashion model and influencer with over 300,000 Instagram followers who has a similar scoliosis story to my sister and I. Scott first discovered she had the condition when she was only 7 years old, ‘My auntie would sit behind me to braid my hair and that was when she noticed that I had a little hump on my back’. She goes on to tell me her journey as a teenager, wearing a back brace and eventually receiving the life-altering surgery in March 2013 when she was 12. ‘I feel like my back brace deepened my love for fashion because I would always wear baggy clothes to cover it. But once I got my brace off I could finally wear what a normal young teenager would want to wear.’
Chandra Scott Modelling for ASOS © ASOS, via Cosmopolitan 2025
Scott talks about how the long scoliosis surgery scar has affected her growing up, ‘I only started to feel comfortable wearing backless tops, maybe when I was in the first year of university’. She emphasises how, ‘It takes time to get used to, not just my perception of my back, but other people's perceptions of my back.’ It isn't something most young girls have to navigate, on top of social pressures around appearances, having such a big scar can make something as insignificant as wearing a swimsuit to the pool a very nerve-racking experience. Scott tells me how she also struggled with post-op ‘binge eating’ at the end of her teenage years, ‘I think it really changed my perception of food’.
Scott became a model after being scouted on Instagram, which then became her full time job soon after leaving university. She tells me about the ASOS campaign she worked on last year and describes the company as ‘relaxed’ about her having a noticeable scar.
‘It ended up being in some newspapers that ASOS is hiring people with scoliosis scars which I loved as so many people got to see how normal it is to have scars.’
Round of applause for ASOS! Scott talks about how the industry reacts to her scar, saying, ‘I feel when casting directors look at me they see nothing unusual. I look like a normal girl, but when I show my back they are unsure about it. I don’t think people know how to work around the idea of someone having a big scar down their back.’ She once worked on a test shoot with a photographer who was happy to take some ‘cool shots’ of her scar. ‘I was so excited to see the photos and I discovered my scar had been edited out.’ A miscommunication between the photographer and the retoucher meant the scar had been erased as default, quite literally airbrushed into nonexistence. ‘That isn't me,’ Scott says, ‘I don’t relate to that person with no scar down her back’.
Scars aren’t often described as part of a minority group, yet they create an atypical, often prejudiced, experience that models like Scott and everyone with visible scars face everyday. ‘I think the industry is still getting used to scars’. Speaking from her experience, Scott says,
‘We need more representation of scars in the fashion and beauty industry. A lot of people say that the fashion industry has progressed a lot, and it has when it comes to height, but it still needs to progress when it comes to size and disabilities and, of course, scars’.
While the fashion industry is still trailing behind in its lack of representation of scars, it’s important to discover the stories behind the people that constitute our beloved fashion world. ‘I feel like it made me have more empathy when it comes to people's bodies and people’s experiences, you never know what someones been through’, Scott says as our conversation draws to a close. Personally, my own scoliosis story was always more than just the scar but the lessons I learned and the people I met along the way. As young creatives we need to embody the change that we want to see happen, by sharing our own stories and not being afraid of what others might say. ‘Do your thing. You’re still normal. It’s just a little scar, and even if it’s not little, it’s part of who you are. There’s always more to life than how your body looks. What's inside is what matters.’ As Chandra Scott puts it, ‘Show it off! Show off your scars!’