ISSUES
: Body Confidence
Chapter 1: Body Image
24
growing economies like Brazil and
South Korea, where an estimated
50 per cent of all women in their 20s
have had work. Many Korean girls
are given a facelift by their fathers
as a graduation present – this is not
anti-ageing, it is about transforming
your features in order to improve your
chances in life.
In some Seoul clinics, as part of
their consultation, clients are asked
to complete a questionnaire. One
question asks what they intend to
do after successful surgery. The
options? “Get a lover”, “find a job”
or “upload a selfie without using
Photoshop”.
This sounds shocking but is not
much different from the Hollywood
stars of the 1920s, including Rudolph
Valentino and Gloria Swanson,
who had work done to their ears,
noses and faces in an effort to land
more roles, in an age when looks
suddenly became magnified on the
silver screen.
In Britain, cosmetic surgery is,
mercifully, more regulated than in
Korea, where it features on game
shows. And after a decade of huge
growth, the trend is for less invasive
work – tweaks not tucks.
Indeed, breast enlargement surgery
fell by 23 per cent last year in the UK,
as many women were put off by the
PIP scandal where many implants
ruptured.
Also, the British attitude is different
from South America or Asia.
“Patients don’t want to look to as if
they have been operated on. They
want to look healthier, brighter, but
not necessarily much younger,”
says Paul Harris, council member of
the British Association of Aesthetic
Plastic Surgeons, adding that for
his patients the most popular breast
size is “a full C”.
Of course, for wealthy clients, the
ultimate sin is to look ‘done’ like the
infamous ‘Bride of Wildenstein’, the
New Yorker Jocelyn Wildenstein,
who spent a rumoured $4 million
looking like a terrifying plastic
cat. Or indeed Jennifer Grey, the
Dirty Dancing
actress, who bitterly
regretted her rhinoplasty. “I went in
the operating room a celebrity and
came out anonymous,” she has
said of the surgery to straighten her
distinctive nose.
People in the UK no longer want to
change their appearance, as they
might have done in the 1990s, but
The top surgical procedures for men and women combined in 2015
Total: 51,140.
Source: SUPER CUTS ‘Daddy makeovers’ and celeb confessions: cosmetic surgery procedures soar in Britain,
The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, 8 February 2016.
Breast augmentation
Blepharoplasty
(eyelid surgery)
Face/Neck lift
Breast reduction
Liposuction
Rhinoplasty
Fat transfer
Adominoplasty
Browlift
Otoplasty
(ear correction)
Surgical procedure
up 12% from last year
0
2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000
up 12%
up 16%
up 13%
up 20%
up 14%
up 3%
up 8%
up 7%
up 14%
Number of surgical procedures performed
9,652
8,689
7,419
6,246
5,551
4,205
3,261
2,933
2,110
1,074
A rise of
12.6% from
2014!
just “have more lustre”, says Harris.
“It’s now all about being subtle.”
Like the great majority of plastic
surgeons in Britain, he works both for
the NHS doing reconstructive work
as well as undertaking cosmetic
work for private patients.
And after nearly a century of
cosmetic surgeons stealing ideas
from reconstructive plastic surgery,
the flow of knowledge is now
going the other way. Fat transfer –
pumping out fat from one area of
the body, typically the stomach, and
injecting it into the face is a case
in point. Developed by cosmetic
surgeons, it is now being used to
help reconstruct breasts following
cancer surgery.
Fat transfers are “alchemy”, says
Nigel Mercer, President of BAPRAS,
but are still very risky. “The problem
with fat is that it’s got millions of
stem cells, I mean millions.” And
with those stem cells comes a far
higher chance of cancer developing
once again.
100 years on, Gillies’ pioneering
work is also still being used to help
people rebuild their lives. As well as
pump up their buttocks.
10 July 2015
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reprinted with kind permission
from
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