character descriptions

Forum question: do I have to give a physical description of my character? Here’s my take.

You do not. The only reasons we describe physical features are A. if they’re important to the readers’ understanding of something which happens in the story (like: character is easy to spot in a crowd because they’re the only one who looks a certain way) and B. to help the reader imagine them.

If you have other distinctive ways that allow the reader to imagine the character, what more need for description is there? I read an article that referenced Hemingway’s classic short story “Hills Like White Elephants” and said: these characters are never described, yet you know what they look like.