I n 1972 Nora Ephron wrote:l piece in Es·

qllirt called "A Few Words About

If'ODHAD charge-cm go oU[ and buy those bigger
breasts, that perfect nose. In 1989 :I young
Breasts." The confession of a less-than- wom:ltl doesn't have to start saving at
amply endowed woman. Ephron's article
was much discussed, because. for one
thing. it appeared in a men's magazine that
WANTID WOMIN tw('my to afford a face-lift at thirty-five. In
faa the only thing that distinguishes the
knifestyles of the rich and famous from
once had naughtily celebrated pneumatic
bhss with its Vargas pinups, but Illorc im-
portantly because the piece so character-
ized the temper of the rimes. Nineteen sev-
TOHAYI those of their middle-class counterparts is
that the rich can hide their bruises at places
like Lc Petit Ermi(Jge in Beverly Hills.
where "recovery rooms" go for betwccn
enty-two was. after aJl, a moment in our
socio-pop his[Ory when a reasonable
woman such as Nora could find herself
fA(I-lifTS, S275 and 5475 a night, and where patients
arc shepherded to their rooms. like Pha-
raohs, through a private underground en-
tom by the conAicting demands of fifties trance. The average working woman-
esthetics and seventies feminism: the for-
mer requiring that women, like Thundcr-
birds, be designed (0 fuJfill men's adoles-
SHI WOUlDN'T maybe a wife, maybe a mother-could fi-
nance the procedure. but can she afford
two weeks of seclusion afterwards? By the
cent f::1I1tJ.sies: the lauer. thal women, like same token, who needs to hide? Sutures
Slalinists. fulfill cach other's political fama-
sit'S, if only by sharing an ideological cor-
set. Such a paradox may explain why the
HAYI'IYIN arc status symbols.
When the cultural values of the ruling
class, which has come to mean celebrities.
Itussians have never come up with a de-
cent sports car, but that's another story.
What's ilHerc..'Sting is how dated Eph-
THIM ASINSI arc met halfway by the economic potcmial
of the middle class. cosmetic surgery is no
longer an option, it's a neo:.'Ssity. Never
ron's piece sounds today. Imagine an one to be imprc..osscd by such things-and
eightil.os woman agonizing over the shape
of her breasts-too smaU, too big, too
pendulous, too asymmetrical-when it is
Of HUMOR amused by the fact thaI Shar-Pei dogs arc
considered uttcrly chic umil tht.'y outgrow
their wrinkles-I innocently asked a
so simple £0 go out and have them re- By Tracy Young woman in my business if she thoug:hlthal
nude. Imagine all eighties woman agoniz- I would have to have a face-lift. "Oh yes,"
ing over whether or not agonizing over ture called "Knifc!otylcs of the Rich and she said. ignonng tht.' opportunity to flat-
the size and Sh:lpc of her breasts is political- Famous." Tummy tucks, nose jobs, breast ter. "Given the timcs we live in and thl'
ly correct! As onl' postoperative patient implallls. and bunock lifts arc all described kind of work we do:' Undauntt.-d, I
tuld a reporter 111 N~1/! York magazine last with such chilling accuracy and unabashed presSt.'CI on. I told her that Illy fantasy was
spnng: "Just because you want bcauriful frankn<.."Ss that you could be eavesdropping to grow old and look I1kt.· Georgia
breasts doc..'Sn't mean you can't be a femi- :u Balducci's meat counter. Or Lourdt.'S. O'Kt.'t'ffe. She bughed the laugh of gal-
nist." We've come a long way, baby. In On some prillllrive metaphysical level. lows humor. "Surt pailHing. kid," she
one shon decade we did away with both rcal-estatc speculauon and plastic surgery said. What sl1<.' mt'ant, I assullle. i~ that
naturc and politics. arc the same thing. When space is finite business is :lbout scllillg. and what's selling
The zeitgeist is an ill wind that blows no and money is no object, you have TV mo- today, wherher you're Ivan:l Trump or
good. In till' past few years. it seelll.~, ev- guls building baronial homes on a squat- just a wannabe, is an inlJge. Young. At-
eryone stopped talking about sex :lIld start- tcr's modcst acreage. When life is fmite tractive. I" control. "When you're selli.ng
ed talking about real estate. Theil they and money is no object, yOll haw TV mo- apartments," a broker told Nell' York mag-
SlOpped talkmg about reall.'State and start- guls' wives uimming their wattles and in- azine, "you can't afford to look like a hag.
ed talking about cosmetic surgery. Now jecting their crow's feet with collagc..-n so Our of fifty-two brokers, I call count on
every lime a group of more than twO for- they can pass for gameh'Cpers' daughters. one hand the ones who haven't had cos-
tYlsh womCll get together, the inevitable The rich have always been patrons of metic work."
punch line to every commiserative ant.'C- beauty. enemies of death. Think of the In Safes & Markl'ti'~f! MmUJ.i!e",flll maga-
dote is: .. And so I'll get a fact.,-lift." Pharaohs swaddled for the afterlife with all zine, a plastic surgt."01l reported lhal "Illore
But this current obsession-and this is their worldy goods, evCll their favorite salespeople than evcr before arc utilizing
what's news-is not necessarily a reflec- cats. BlII cosmetic surgery no longer r('- plastic surgery to improve their sales." His
tion of age, or even gender. In a reccnt is- flects the hubris, if you will, solely of the specialties? Shoring up that weak chin,
sue of Star magazine. which has its flllger rich. In 1989 the concerns of Ivana Trump which is considered, he says, a sign of un-
on the pulse more than today's Esquire, arc not so very diff('rcnt from ours. And in reliability, and filling out thin lips, which
Michael Landon, fifty-two, and his thiny- 1989 what's possible for Ivana Trump is he says spell untrustworthiness. BUl how
two-year-old wife announced that they also Within the grasp of the wife of her much can you trust someone who would
wcre geuing his and her face-lifts for Val- chauffeur. A number of finance companies Ifide a defcct? If physical perfection were a
entine's Day. And Dtlails magazine, now offer unsecured pcl'"SOnal loans with guarantee of Illoral rectitude, Dan Quayle
which presumes a readership tOO young to monthly payments as low as sixty dollars would be teaching school in the South
be worned about dewb.ps (and too kinky so that anyone with a decent credit rat- Bronx, and cab drivers in Mexico City
to care about gcnder), runs a regul.:ar fea- ing-for instance. a paid-up Macy's would have Ken dolls affixed to their >

Mlr~bclb July 19l:l9 55

SUTURE SHOCK
dashbo.:uds. But nobody's perfea. And if
they were, would they be selling real
estate?
NOlle or this is to say I haven't had my
weak moments. One day not long ago. I
bent over to pick up my car keys, caught a
look at myself in the glass tabletop. and
shrieked. The skin on my face-once
bound to bone and muscle-had come
loose from its moorings. "Never, never.
never look at yourself upside down," said
a friend who'd wltnC'ssed this event. An-
other friend explained that chis phenome-
non was the reason the missionary posi-
tion had caught all.
If 1l3turc's first shock is puberty, the sec-
ond is middle age. I am beginning to think
that Elisabeth Kublcr-Ross's five StagL'S of
dealing with death-denial, anger. bar-
gaining, depression. and acceptancc-
have been modified somewhat. The new
agenda goes like this: denial, ;mga, bar-
gaining, depression, and cosmetic sur-
gl'ry. So why c:m't I believc that a face-lift
is the answer?
Ikct.'ntly I ran into a friend I hadn't st.'Cn
in a couplc of months. J was horrified; she
looked frozen with horror. As it turned
out, she'd only had hcr eyes done and now
When I told a
woman I work with
that myfantasy was
to grow old and
look like Georgia
O'Keeffe, she
laughed. "Start
painting, kid"
resembled some kind of f('tal raccoon,
with a taul mask of prell'rllaturally-
smooth skin around the cyi.:~, and a face
full of creascs and wrinkles. Clc.1r1y the
next Stcp was a face-lift, though there's
nothing to be gaincd from an unfurrowcd
brow when the skin on yOllr hands is so
bagged out with veins you should wear
garters at the wrist. So where dO\.'s the CUt-
ting and pasting stop?
Tht: ravages of time: may not bl' preuy,
but they have a c('rtain ruilll,:d nobility.
And consider the alternative. Look at the
btl'r picturt.'S of TnJlllan Capote-therc's
nothing quite so frightc.:nmg as a very old
child. ~
7be five most talked about
procedures
By Catherine Clifford
li'llIC1ilnIn only Icn ycars, Ihis h" blos-
somed from experimental status to the
most popular cosmetic plastic surgical op-
eration in the U.S. In 1986 (the Iatt.'St year
for which figun'S arc available). nearly
100,000 people paid SS<X> to S4000 each to
have their fat vacuuml'd, according to thc
American Socicty of Plastic and Recon-
structive Surgeons. This rcHects not only
Widespread dissatisfaction with bodies but
also great word of mouth. Although the
procedure sounds gnJt."SOme1y primitive-
the surgl'Oll makes a small incision. insens
DoES BIGGER NECESSARILY MEAN BETTER?
a tube, and shoves it around (;albeit skillful-
ly), loosellmg fat globulcs and sucking
them Out-tht' resuJts usu:ally make the
"properly selected" p:atiem very happy.
That "properly selected" caveat goes for
every kind of plastic surgery. but perhaps
most of all for liposuction. Liposuction is
not, ironically, for the chronically fat. It
onJy removes aberrant bulges from a few
placcs; it does not whittle a whole new
hC::ld-to-toc body. The bcst C3ndidatt: is
someonc at or ncar her ideal wl'ight. (fhc
more extensive the area worked on, the
riskier :md the less predictablc the results.)
Liposuction never has to be repeated in the
same spot. It appc.3.TS that lhe body has a
finite number of fat cells. each of which
swells or shrinks as you gain or lose
weight. Removing some of the fat cells
from a given area
pcnnancntly dimin-
ishes thc capacity to
gain weight in that
spot. Though the av-
crage patient loses
only a total of about
twO pounds of fat In
the vacuuming. the
CfTl'ct is dramatic bc:-
cause: the weight
comes off in all the
right plact.'S.
Tht., up side: al-
though doctors used
to believe liposuction
was suitable only for BOTTOMS UP: THE
young women MIRACLE OF
(tcclls-thirties) with LIPOSUCTION
shrink-to-fir skill.
they're finding that tht: procedure may
work for somc people well into their six-
til."S. "Wt.'·vc leamed that oldcr skin is often
much more clastic th.an we thought," says
Lawrence S. Iked, M.D., F.A.C.S.• a
New York City plastic surgl'On who is af-
filiated with Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.
The primary, and most promising patient,
though, is still the younger olle: "Not only
arc the rt.'Sults predictably optimal." Dr.
nl.'Cd explains, "but I think the reason lipo-
suction patients are among lhe most satis-
fied we see is that they're generally young
and they already look good ex-
cept that they have this OtiC per-
ceived problem. Fix thal, and
they're perfect. "
tr!llt 11,1!llItiIIAno'hcr comer.
The fashion worlds' current fasci-
nation with ample bosoms has
generated an increasing demand
MIrabella July 1989