IN THE HISTORY OF Western dress, fashion has long been the predominant tool for creating ‘ideal’ bodily shapes by covering up, transcending and reshaping our ‘actual’ bodies.¹ In 2015, this practice is still very much alive – just think of the use of shapewear and push-up bras. Over the last century however, shape-shifting has moved from the cloth that covers the flesh to the flesh itself; we live in a ‘makeover culture’ where cosmetic surgery has become commonplace.²

Like fashion, the cosmetic surgery industry is fuelled by continuous change. What started out as mostly scalpel surgery has transformed into a wider practice that also includes the use of fillers to make more temporary adjustments to lips, cheeks, hips and bottoms. As cultural studies scholar Meredith Jones puts it, ‘It is the new affordable and impermanent nature of much contemporary cosmetic surgery that brings it into alignment, symbolically and practically, with fashion.’³

While this might be considered a technological success, discourses of cosmetic surgery are also tightly interwoven with ideas of failure. Both those who justify and those who critique the practice describe it in terms of failure, though their interpretations are poles apart. What sort of failure does cosmetic surgery instantiate? Who fails, and who or what fails them?

Cosmetic surgery is founded on the twin supposition that bodies, especially female bodies, must be beautiful, and that they regularly fail to be so. The medicalised beauty industry represents the female body as both falling short and deteriorating. Although in its ageist logic, every body will fail eventually, the first cosmetic surgeons focused on the exceptionally failed body. To justify their interventions, they relied heavily on categories of disease and deformity. To have drooping eyelids, uneven breasts or a receding chin was, in other words, deemed literally pathological. Such pathologies, surgeons argued, had deep psychological effects that could be ameliorated with physical repair.

But deformed, diseased bodies are by definition exceptional bodies, and a body no longer needs to be exceptional to demand intervention. The reigning idea now is that all bodies can – and perhaps even should – be enhanced. Only a few decades ago, cosmetic surgery was a rare and exclusive practice; it is now widespread. In the U.S. alone, there were fifteen million procedures in 2014 (roughly double from 2007), if one includes non-surgical practices such as laser peels and injections.

In a recent cover story for Time magazine, medical journalist Joel Stein argues that cosmetic procedures will soon become both ubiquitous and obligatory.⁴ He describes South Korea as heavily populated with surgically modified citizens, and sees Western countries following suit. Medical cosmetic technologies, he argues, will become merely another activity of maintenance, upkeep and self-responsibility within the competitive markets of labour, consumption and lifestyle. Cosmetic surgery will not only be a mode of fashioning a normatively ideal body, but also a performance of neoliberal citizenship.

Undergoing a cosmetic procedure may, however, involve capitulation. Writing in the second person (and constructing his reader as middle-class, Western and female), Stein argues that ‘you’ will give in eventually: ‘You’re going to have to do it. And not all that long from now. Not because you hate yourself, fear aging or are vain. You’re going to get a cosmetic procedure for the same reason you wear makeup: because every other woman is.’⁵

Stein invokes a decades-long debate in feminism. While some feminists have argued that cosmetic surgery is a more or less pragmatic negotiation of gender norms, others insist that the ‘need’ for cosmetic surgery represents psychic failures. In this view, cosmetic surgery patients hate their bodies, or experience a form of ‘false consciousness.’

The stereotype of the self-loathing cosmetic surgery patient can also be found in the annals of psychiatry. Lacking much in the way of critique of gender norms, the mid-twentieth century psychiatric discourse addressed women who underwent cosmetic surgery as neurotics, disordered personalities or otherwise pathological subjects. Contemporary discussions of Body Dysmorphic Disorder similarly scrutinise the female psyche as vulnerable to self-hatred and, in addition, claim that they are susceptible to addiction. Such discussions feed into the belief that women – vulnerable, self-loathing and easily addicted – are responsible for the recent upsurge of cosmetic surgeries, instead of the other way around. There are good reasons to be wary of identifying the ‘surgery junkie’ as a culprit of the cosmetic surgery boom. After all, this logic lays the burden of cosmetic surgery’s problems on the shoulders of individual, mostly female patients, and ignores the institutional forces that account for its vast expansion.⁶

Whether cosmetic surgery corrects a failed body or suggests a failed psyche is an irrelevant question; in my view, these assumptions are both flawed. Instead, the explosion of cosmetic surgery is a symptom of catastrophic structural failures. In the U.S. and globally, its mass expansion is part of a broader turn toward enhancement medicine, where the ‘maximisation of lifestyle, potential, health, and quality of life has become almost obligatory,’ as sociologist Nick Rose puts it.⁷

This maximisation, however, takes place in a context of deepening social and economic inequality, one in which there is unequal access to health care, medical technologies and life-saving drugs, as well as food and environmental security. On a global scale, these disparities are extreme, but even within the U.S. context, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, life expectancy and other measures of health vary greatly by socioeconomic status, race and geographic location.⁸

Whether ‘you’ get cosmetic surgery in the future is not necessarily a measure of whether and how your body or psyche have failed you. It may depend more on your status in neoliberal capitalism. Cosmetic surgery and other forms of elective medicine are fostered by the profit-driven stratification of medicine. This system confers biomedical citizenship on those who can oblige demands for self-care, wellness and enhancement, while denying it to those who cannot. You are not failing, but our systems may be failing you.

This article was first published in Vestoj On Failure.

Victoria Pitts-Taylor is a professor of Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Wesleyan University.

Cara Phillips is a Brooklyn-based photographer, curator, writer and lecturer.

1. A Hollander, Seeing through Clothes, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993 [orig. 1975] ↩

2. M Jones, ‘New Clothes, New Faces, New Bodies: Cosmetic Surgery and Fashion,’ in S Bruzzi and P Church Gibson (eds), Fashion Cultures Revisited: Theories, Explorations and Analysis, Routledge, New York, 2013, p.294 ↩

3. Ibid., p.289 ↩

4. J Stein, ‘Nip. Tuck. Or Else,’ Time, June 18 2015 ↩

5. Ibid. ↩

6. D Sullivan, Cosmetic Surgery: The Cutting Edge of Commercial Medicine, Rutgers Univerity Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2001 ↩

7. N Rose, The Politics of Life Itself, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2006, p.25 ↩

8. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ‘CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report – United States, 2013,’ Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Vol. 62, No. 3, 2013, pp.1-187 ↩

‘WHO IS THAT FAT woman dancing?’ I asked the Parisian who was piloting me through the ballroom for the first time.

‘That’s my aunt,’ he said, ‘a very young, very frolicsome, and, as you can see from her diamonds, very rich person.’

Very rich, very frolicsome, maybe, I thought; but very young, that can’t be right. I kept looking at her, dumbfounded; and, as I was unable to detect any trace of youth about her, I ventured to ask the sum total of her years.

‘That’s a silly question,’ replied Arthur, laughing at my faux pas. ‘My dear sir, I’m my aunt’s heir; I’m certainly not going to tell her age.’ Seeing that I didn’t understand, he added, ‘I have no desire to be disinherited. But allow me to introduce you to my mother. She used to be very close to yours; she’ll be delighted to meet you.’

I followed Arthur, and, next to a veritable shrub of camellias, we found two young ladies sitting in the midst of a cloud of more or less frivolous male butterflies. Arthur introduced me to the younger – at least, to the one who at first appeared to be so; she was the better dressed, the better groomed, the more engaging, and the more courted of the two. I was still dazed by the lights and the music, and by the fact that I was making my debut in Parisian society and was afraid of seeming gauche and provincial – and indeed I was as gauche as anyone can possibly be, because I didn’t hear the introductory compliments that Arthur recited while he steered me toward this dazzling beauty, and it took me a good five minutes to recover from the teasing and provocative glance her lovely dark eyes shot at me. She spoke to me, she questioned me; I answered wildly and randomly, not being able to overcome my awkwardness. Eventually I managed to grasp that she was asking me whether I danced; and as I was beginning to offer my apologies, ‘He dances just as well as anyone else,’ Arthur declared; ‘he hasn’t yet had the courage to take the plunge, that’s all.’

‘Bah! The first step is the hardest,’ the lady retorted; ‘we must overcome this timidity. I suppose you haven’t ventured to engage anyone? Well then, I shall cure your embarrassment and hurl you into the fray. Come and waltz with me. Give me your arm . . . not like that . . . put your arm around me, so . . . not stiffly, don’t crumple my dress; that’s right! You’ll get the hang of it. . . . Wait for the ritornello, follow my movements . . . here we are . . . let’s go!’

And, light as a sylph, bold as a soldier, solid as a besieged citadel amid the jolts of the dancers, she whirled me away.

For a while everything seemed like a dream. My sole concerns, as I leapt and spun, were to avoid falling over with my partner, to avoid crumpling her, and to keep in time with the music. Little by little I began to see that I was managing just as well as anyone else – in other words, that these Parisians waltzed just as badly as I did – and I settled down and gained in assurance. I began to look at the creature I was holding in my arms, and discovered, as we waltzed round the room, that this radiant puppet (she was a little out of breath and had been crammed a little too tightly into her bodice) was growing uglier before my very eyes. Her debut had been brilliant, but she fatigued easily; dark circles were developing around her eyes, blotches were appearing in her complexion, and, it must be confessed, she seemed to me less and less young and light. I had some trouble getting her back to her place, and when I tried to thank her politely for initiating me on the dance floor, I came out with such clumsy and coldly respectful language that she scarcely seemed to hear me.

‘Now then,’ I said to my friend Arthur, ‘who was the lady I’ve just been waltzing with?’

‘That’s a fine question! Have you lost your wits? I introduced you to her only a moment ago.’

‘That doesn’t tell me anything.’

‘Why, you scatterbrain, she’s my mother!’ he replied with a touch of impatience.

‘Your mother!’ I echoed, embarrassed by my folly. ‘Do excuse me; I thought she was your sister.’

‘Charming! Then he must have thought my sister was my mother! My dear fellow, you mustn’t make that kind of mistake, and go rattling off compliments to the wrong lady in imitation of Thomas Diafoirus.’

‘Your mother!’ I went on, heedless of his jibes. ‘She dances well . . . but then, how old is she?’

‘Not again! This is too much. Everyone will send you packing if you keep on asking women’s ages.’

‘But surely your mother wouldn’t bear me any ill-will; after all, it’s just an innocent compliment. From her jewels, her figure, and her vivacity, I thought she was a mere girl. I can’t believe she’s old enough to be your mother.’

‘Well, well,’ said Arthur, chuckling, ‘these simpleminded country folk do know how to get themselves forgiven. All the same, I must warn you not to play the dashing young blade too much with my mother. She loves to poke fun at people; besides, it would really be in the worst possible taste to show any surprise that a mother is still active on the dance floor. Look around you. Aren’t all the mothers dancing? It’s quite the thing, at their age!’

‘Then women here must marry very early in life to have such grown-up children.’

‘No earlier here than elsewhere. My dear boy, you really must get the whole idea out of your head; I should tell you that after they reach thirty, Parisian women have no age at all, for the simple reason that they never get any older. It’s the height of rudeness to ask how old they are, as you keep doing. What if I told you that I don’t know my mother’s age?’

‘I wouldn’t believe you.’

‘And yet I don’t. I’m too well born, and I’ve been too well brought up, to ask her any such question.’

I went from one surprise to another. I returned to Arthur’s sister, and I still thought that, superficially at least, she looked less young than her mother. She was a girl of about twenty-five; no one had thought of marrying her, and she was cross about it. She was poorly dressed, either because she had no taste, or else because the necessary expense for her attire couldn’t be afforded. Either way, her mother had clearly never tried to display her to advantage, and therefore had done her a serious disservice. Perhaps as a reaction against her mother’s giddy manner, she was no flirt. Nobody paid her much attention; she wasn’t asked to dance much. Her aunt – the fat aunt who danced with such frenzy, and whose heir Arthur claimed to be – chaperoned her now and then while her mother danced. At such times the aunt was keen to be back on the dance floor herself, and so brought the girl a few recruits who were dutybound to oblige. I was soon assigned this task, and performed it less reluctantly than the others did. The girl wasn’t at all ugly; she was merely cold and awkward. Yet she did loosen up and get a bit livelier in my presence. She went so far as to tell me that she was bored with society, and that the ballroom was her torture chamber. I then realised that she had been dragged along against her will, to accompany her mother; she herself was, in effect, acting as mother to the author of her days. She was doomed to be a mere pretext. Arthur’s father, who had the tastes you’d expect to find in a man of his age, resigned himself to running the gauntlet of society or remaining alone by the fire, because Madame kept telling him, ‘If you have a daughter to marry off, you certainly must take her out to dances.’ And all the while, the daughter didn’t get married. The father kept yawning, and the mother kept dancing.

I took the poor young lady onto the dance floor a number of times. At a ball in the country, this would have compromised her, and her parents would have given me a piece of their mind. In Paris, by contrast, everyone was exceedingly grateful to me, and Mademoiselle didn’t display any of the pretty bashfulness that launches so many small-town sentimental romances among young people. This gave me the right to sit beside her afterwards and have a talk with her, while the two matrons exchanged sweet nothings with their admirers and simpered charmingly.

Our own chat was much less frivolous. Mademoiselle Emma was perceptive – too perceptive; it made her malicious, though she wasn’t witty by nature. My simplicity gave her confidence.

She even informed me about the matters that had so astonished me at the start of the ball, and proved a much more forthcoming tour guide than her brother, so that I didn’t need to venture many questions.

‘You’re amazed at the sight of my fat aunt kicking up her heels with such gusto,’ she told me; ‘well, that’s nothing; she’s only forty-five, she’s just a girl. She’s very upset about her weight –  it makes her look old. My mother is better preserved, don’t you think? Yet she’s been a grandmother for some years; my older sister has children of her own. I don’t know Mamma’s exact age; but even if we assume that she married very early in life, I’m sure she must be fifty at the very least.’

‘That’s amazing!’ I exclaimed. ‘Good God, when I think of my poor mother, with her big bonnets, her big shoes, her big knitting needles and her spectacles, and then look at all the ladies of the same age here in short sleeves and satin shoes, with flowers in their hair and young men on their arms, I really believe I must be dreaming.’

‘Then perhaps you’re having a nightmare,’ suggested Emma unkindly. ‘My mother used to be so strikingly beautiful that she might possibly have still some right to try and appear so. But it’s less pardonable for my aunt to wear such a low-cut dress and exhibit the sorry sight of her obesity as freely as she does.’

I automatically turned around – and accidentally bumped against two shoulder blades so bulging that I had to glance at the aunt’s floral chignon to convince myself I was seeing her from behind. This overabundance of health positively horrified me, and Mademoiselle Emma quickly noticed my pallor.

‘That’s nothing,’ she said with a smile, and the pleasure of mockery fleetingly lit up her eyes with the glow that love had never given them. ‘Look around; count up all the young girls and pretty women. Then count up all the ugly women (of whatever age) and the ones who are over the hill; and finish off with the old hags, the hunchbacks or near-hunchbacks, the mothers and grandmothers and great-aunts, and you’ll see that decrepitude and ugliness constitute the majority in our ballrooms and dominate society.’

‘Oh, it really is a nightmare!’ I exclaimed. ‘And what scandalises me most is the exorbitant luxury involved in rigging out these unbridled and fantastic creatures. Ugliness never seemed as repulsive to me as it does here. Until now I felt sorry for it. I even had a kind of respectful sympathy for it. When a woman has neither youth nor beauty, one feels obliged to honour her all the more by way of compensation. But this bedizened old age – this brazen ugliness – these wrinkles that contort themselves into voluptuous smiles – these ponderous and superannuated odalisques who squash their frail squires flat – these skeletons draped in diamonds, who seem to creak as if they’re going to disintegrate into dust – these false tresses, false teeth, false waists –  all these false airs and graces – they’re a ghastly sight – they’re the Dance of Death!’

An old friend of Arthur’s family – a fairly well-known painter, and a wit – came up to us and heard my last words.

‘Young man,’ he said, as he sat down next to me, ‘I quite approve of your anger, though it doesn’t exactly assuage mine. Are you a poet – or an artist? If you’re either, what are you doing in a place like this? Be off with you! Otherwise you might grow accustomed to this abominable reversal of the laws of nature. And the very first law of nature is harmony – in other words, beauty. Yes, there’s beauty all around us, as long as it knows its place and doesn’t stray from what naturally suits it. Old age is beautiful too – as long as it doesn’t try to twist itself into an imitation of youth. Is there anything finer than the noble bald head of a calm and honourable old man? Look at all these old periwigged idiots. Well now, if I could dress and groom them as I pleased, and make them look and act differently, I’d find some excellent models among them, I can tell you that. As you see them now, they’re mere hideous caricatures. Where have good taste, and awareness of the most elementary principles, and (I must add) even plain commonsense, gone? I’m not talking only of current fashions in clothing; though men’s fashions are the most dismal, silly, graceless, and inconvenient things imaginable. That black is a symbol of mourning; it strikes you to the heart.

‘As for women’s fashions, they’re pleasant enough at the moment, and might even be considered pretty. But so few women can tell what suits them! Look around, and you’ll find scarcely three out of forty in this room who are presentably got up and know how to turn the restrictions of current fashion to their advantage. Most of them have more taste for opulence than for beauty. The same thing is happening in all the arts, in all forms of decoration. The wealthy spendthrifts want what is costly; the wealthy misers want what is showy; nobody wants what is simple and beautiful. Well now, don’t the women of Paris have monstrous enough models in front of their eyes to cure them of any taste for ugliness?’

‘What about the old English ladies piled high with feathers and diamonds,’ I exclaimed, ‘like fantastically caparisoned horses of the Apocalypse!’

‘You may be able to talk about them,’ he replied; ‘perhaps you notice some of them in this very room. I, however, have trained myself not to see them. When I suspect that they’re in a room, I erase them from my sight by sheer willpower.’

‘Really?’ said Mademoiselle Emma, laughing; ‘oh, but you can’t possibly avoid seeing that enormous Lady  – – ! There she is, treading on your toes at this moment. Even if you can’t see the huge creature, you must at least feel the weight of her. Five and a half feet tall; four feet around the waist; a plume from an undertaker’s hearse; lace that has yellowed on the bodies of three generations of dowagers and cost three thousand francs per meter; a bodice shaped like a sentry box; teeth all the way down to her chin; a chin bristling with a gray beard; and, to match the lot, a pretty little light blonde wig with dear little girlish curls. Just look at her; she’s the pearl of the United Kingdom.’

‘My imagination revels at such a portrait,’ returned the painter, turning his head away; ‘but some realities are uglier than anything our imaginations can invent; and therefore, even if the noble lady trod on my whole body, I still wouldn’t look at her.’

‘But I thought you said nature never creates anything ugly,’ I pursued.

‘Nature never creates anything too ugly for art to transform into something more beautiful – or more ugly, depending on the artist. And every human being is the artist who shapes his own self, morally and physically. He can make use of it either for better or for worse, depending on how true or how false he is. Why do we see so many women, and even men, who are creatures of artifice? Because they have false notions of themselves. As I said, beauty is harmony, and beauty exists in nature because the laws of nature are ruled by harmony. When we disrupt that natural harmony, we produce something ugly; and nature seems to aid and abet us, because she keeps on generating what is consistent with her own rules, thus heightening the contrast. The upshot is that we blame her, when we ourselves have been foolish and guilty. Do you follow me, Mademoiselle?’

‘It’s a bit abstract for me, I must confess,’ Emma replied.

‘I’ll use an example to explain it,’ said the artist; ‘the very example that prompted our discussion. As I said at the start, there’s nothing ugly in nature. To simplify matters, let’s confine our attention to human nature. There’s a conventional belief that it’s horrible to grow old, because old age is ugly. As a result, a woman has her white hairs plucked, or dyes them; she uses makeup to hide her wrinkles, or at least, tries to add some luster to her faded cheeks with the deceptive glitter of bright fabrics. I don’t want to make a long catalogue of cosmetic artifices, so I’ll stop there. But note that instead of banishing the signs of old age, such devices merely make them more lasting and more glaring. Nature digs her heels in; old age refuses to back down; a face looks all the more wrinkled and angular underneath hair of an artificial tint that clashes with the wearer’s true, undisguisable age. Bright, vividly coloured fabrics, flowers, diamonds against the skin – everything that glitters and attracts attention –  will make anything that is already faded seem even more faded. And apart from the physical effect, there’s the effect on our minds, which must necessarily be affected by what our eyes see. Our judgement is shocked by such discrepancies. ‘Why struggle so hard against the divine laws?’ we instinctively ask. ‘Why adorn your body as if it could still arouse passion? Why not be content with the majesty of age and the respect that it inspires? Flowers on those bald heads or white hairs? What a joke! What a desecration!’

‘Old age breeds disgust when it’s patched and painted; but it would leave a much kinder and less unflattering impression if it gave up trying to transgress the laws of nature. There are styles of dress and adornment appropriate for old men and women. Look at some of the old masters’ paintings  – Rembrandt’s white-bearded men, Van Dyck’s matrons with their long silk or black velvet bodices, their white bonnets, their austere ruffs or wimples, their imposing and noble brows plainly visible, their long and venerable fingers, their rich and heavy chains – forms of adornment that set off ceremonial robes without robbing them of their dignity. Not that I’m saying we should copy the old fashions slavishly; that would be just eccentric. Any attempt at originality would be unbecoming in old age. But sensible customs and logical habits would soon spread comparable fashions throughout society, and public common sense would soon create a different costume for each age group – instead of creating a different costume for each social class, which has been the rule far too long. Give me the task of designing the old men’s dress, since I belong to that group myself, and you’ll see that a lot of these fellows who nowadays can’t model for anything but caricatures will look decidedly handsome. I myself, for a start. Here I am, obliged to wear a coat that chokes me, a shoe that pinches me, a cravat that accentuates my pointed chin, and a shirt collar that bunches up my wrinkles – for fear of looking odd and breaking the rules of good taste. Well, you’d see me with a fine black robe or a long flowing mantle, a venerable beard, calf-length fur boots or slippers – a whole set of clothes that would match the way I naturally look, my ponderous gait, my need for comfort and dignity. And then, my dear Emma, you might perhaps say, ‘There’s a handsome old man.’ Instead of which you’re obliged to say, when you see me wearing the same kind of clothes as my grandson, ‘What a villainous-looking old fellow!’’

Emma laughed at this entertaining declaration, and then said, ‘I think you’re too frank for your own good – and other people’s. Just imagine what a revolution, what an uproar there would be among the women, if they were forced to emphasise their age by starting to wear an octogenarian’s costume when they turned fifty!’

‘Believe me, it would make them look younger,’ he replied. ‘Anyhow, we could design different clothes for every twenty-year age group. I must say, by the way, that it’s a mistake when a woman tries to turn her date of birth into a big secret. Sooner or later some slip will be sure to betray the fact that you’ve lied about your age; and then, even if it’s only been by a single year, everyone will maliciously pile the years on you by the handful. ‘Thirty?’ someone will say; ‘more like forty.’ ‘Well, she looks a good fifty,’ someone else will say. And some comedian will add, ‘Maybe a hundred! When a woman is so clever at hiding her age, how can you tell?’ It seems to me that if I were a woman, I’d prefer to look a well preserved forty than a badly-faded thirty. I’m sure that whenever I learn that a woman is no longer admitting her age, instantly I start to think of her as old – very old.’

‘Well, I feel the same way,’ I remarked in turn; ‘but tell me more on the subject of dress. You’d leave fashions for young women just as they are today?’

‘Not at all, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ he replied; ‘I find them much too plain. Compared to the mothers’ fashions, which are so opulent, they’re quite niggardly – repulsively so. I think Emma, for instance, is dressed like a child; from the time she turned fifteen, I would have adorned her much more than she currently is. Are people already trying to make her look younger? There’s no need for that. It’s customary, we’re told, it’s tasteful; plainness suits the modesty of youth; I fully agree, but doesn’t it also suit the dignity of motherhood? Then the older women comfort the girls by telling them, ‘Your natural charms are adornment enough for you; we’re the ones who need the help of art.’ A curious model! A curious display of modesty and morality! And in the eyes of an artist, what a topsy-turvy notion! Here we have a matron decked out in finery, while her pretty and charming daughter is dressed for her first communion – dressed almost as a nun! Why, what are flowers and diamonds for – what are rich fabrics and all the treasures of art and nature for – except to adorn beauty? And if you’re singing the praises of plain modest purity, is that a virtue limited to virgins? Why are you so quick to rob yourselves of the one quality that could make you still more beautiful? If you want to appear youthful, why do you make yourselves look immodest? A bizarre kind of reasoning! An insoluble puzzle! Some shameless creatures seem to think that a woman should be like a flower, and display more and more of her breast as she ripens. What they don’t realise is that a woman doesn’t pass straight from beauty to death as a rose does. She is more fortunate; after the loss of her first brilliance, she retains a fragrance more lasting than that of roses.’

The ball was finishing. Emma’s mother and aunt stayed to the very end, getting steadily bolder and livelier – and, due to the excitement and fatigue, looking steadily uglier. Emma was in a good mood because she had heard their follies anathematised. After the old artist left, she continued to talk with me, but her conversation became so bitter and vindictive that eventually I had to go away, deeply saddened. Bad mothers, bad daughters! ‘Is that what our world is like, then?’ I asked myself.

George Sand was a nineteenth-century French novelist and critic. Her short story, ‘Mothers in Fashionable Society,’ was written between 1884 and 1885 and originally published in Le Diable à Paris, an illustrated book which also counted Théophile Gautier and Honoré de Balzac as contributors. The conceit of the book, explained in its prologue, was that the devil was sending emissary to Paris disguised as a dandy, who would report back to Hell on contemporary life.

THERE WAS A MASQUERADE ball at the Elysée-Montmartre that evening. It was the ‘Mi-Carême,’ and the crowds were pouring into the brightly lighted passage which leads to the dance ball, like water flowing through the open lock of a canal. The loud call of the orchestra, bursting like a storm of sound, shook the rafters, swelled through the whole neighbourhood and awoke, in the streets and in the depths of the houses, an irresistible desire to jump, to get warm, to have fun, which slumbers within each human animal.

The patrons came from every quarter of Paris; there were people of all classes who love noisy pleasures, a little low and tinged with debauch. There were clerks and girls – girls of every description, some wearing common cotton, some the finest batiste; rich girls, old and covered with diamonds, and poor girls of sixteen, full of the desire to revel, to belong to men, to spend money. Elegant black evening suits, in search of fresh or faded but appetising novelty, wandering through the excited crowds, looking, searching, while the masqueraders seemed moved above all by the desire for amusement. Already the far-famed quadrilles had attracted around them a curious crowd. The moving hedge which encircled the four dancers swayed in and out like a snake, sometimes nearer and sometimes farther away, according to the motions of the performers. The two women, whose lower limbs seemed to be attached to their bodies by rubber springs, were making wonderful and surprising motions with their legs. Their partners hopped and skipped about, waving their arms about. One could imagine their panting breath beneath their masks.

One of them, who had taken his place in the most famous quadrille, as substitute for an absent celebrity, the handsome ‘Songe-au-Gosse,’ was trying to keep up with the tireless ‘Arête-de-Veau’ and was making strange fancy steps which aroused the joy and sarcasm of the audience.

He was thin, dressed like a dandy, with a pretty varnished mask on his face. It had a curly blond moustache and a wavy wig. He looked like a wax figure from the Musée Grévin, like a strange and fantastic caricature of the charming young man of fashion plates, and he danced with visible effort, clumsily, with a comical impetuosity. He appeared rusty beside the others when he tried to imitate their gambols: he seemed overcome by rheumatism, as heavy as a great Dane playing with greyhounds. Mocking bravos encouraged him. And he, carried away with enthusiasm, jigged about with such frenzy that suddenly, carried away by a wild spurt, he pitched head foremost into the living wall formed by the audience, which opened up before him to allow him to pass, then closed around the inanimate body of the dancer, stretched out on his face.

Some men picked him up and carried him away, calling for a doctor. A gentleman stepped forward, young and elegant, in well-fitting evening clothes, with large pearl studs. ‘I am a professor of the Faculty of Medicine,’ he said in a modest voice. He was allowed to pass, and he entered a small room full of little cardboard boxes, where the still lifeless dancer had been stretched cut on some chairs. The doctor at first wished to take off the mask, and he noticed that it was attached in a complicated manner, with a perfect network of small metal wires which cleverly bound it to his wig and covered the whole head. Even the neck was imprisoned in a false skin which continued the chin and was painted the colour of flesh, being attached to the collar of the shirt.

All this had to be cut with strong scissors. When the physician had slit open this surprising arrangement, from the shoulder to the temple, he opened this armour and found the face of an old man, worn out, thin and wrinkled. The surprise among those who had brought in this seemingly young dancer was so great that no one laughed, no one said a word.

All were watching this sad face as he lay on the straw chairs, his eyes closed, his face covered with white hair, some long, falling from the forehead over the face, others short, growing around the face and the chin, and beside this poor head, that pretty little, neat varnished, smiling mask.

The man regained consciousness after being inanimate for a long time, but he still seemed to be so weak and sick that the physician feared some dangerous complication. He asked: ‘Where do you live?’

The old dancer seemed to be making an effort to remember, and then he mentioned the name of the street, which no one knew. He was asked for more definite information about the neighbourhood. He answered with a great slowness, indecision and difficulty, which revealed his upset state of mind. The physician continued:

‘I will take you home myself.’

Curiosity had overcome him to find out who this strange dancer, this phenomenal jumper might be. Soon the two rolled away in a cab to the other side of Montmartre.

They stopped before a high building of poor appearance. They went up a winding staircase. The doctor held to the banister, which was so grimy that the hand stuck to it, and he supported the dizzy old man, whose forces were beginning to return. They stopped at the fourth floor.

The door at which they had knocked was opened by an old woman, neat looking, with a white nightcap enclosing a thin face with sharp features, one of those good, rough faces of a hard-working and faithful woman. She cried out:

‘For goodness sake! What’s the matter?’

He told her the whole affair in a few words. She became reassured and even calmed the physician himself by telling him that the same thing had happened many times. She said: ‘He must be put to bed, monsieur, that is all. Let him sleep and tomorrow he will be all right.’

The doctor continued: ‘But he can hardly speak.’

‘Oh! that’s just a little drink, nothing more; he has eaten no dinner, in order to be nimble, and then he took a few absinthes in order to work himself up to the proper pitch. You see, drink gives strength to his legs, but it stops his thoughts and words. He is too old to dance as he does. Really, his lack of common sense is enough to drive one mad!’

The doctor, surprised, insisted:

‘But why does he dance like that at his age?’

She shrugged her shoulders and turned red from the anger which was slowly rising within her and she cried out:

‘Ah! yes, why? So that the people will think him young under his mask; so that the women will still take him for a young dandy and whisper nasty things into his ears; so that he can rub up against all their dirty skins, with their perfumes and powders and cosmetics. Ah! it’s a fine business! What a life I have had for the last forty years! But we must first get him to bed, so that he may have no ill effects. Would you mind helping me? When he is like that I can’t do anything with him alone.’

The old man was sitting on his bed, with a tipsy look, his long white hair falling over his face. His companion looked at him with tender yet indignant eyes. She continued:

‘Just see the fine head he has for his age, and yet he has to go and disguise himself in order to make people think that he is young. It’s a perfect shame! Really, he has a fine head, monsieur! Wait, I’ll show it to you before putting him to bed.’

She went to a table on which stood the washbasin a pitcher of water, soap and a comb and brush. She took the brush, returned to the bed and pushed back the drunkard’s tangled hair. In a few seconds she made him look like a model fit for a great painter, with his long white locks flowing on his neck. Then she stepped back in order to observe him, saying: ‘There! Isn’t he fine for his age?’

‘Very,’ agreed the doctor, who was beginning to be highly amused.

She added: ‘And if you had known him when he was twenty-five! But we must get him to bed, otherwise the drink will make him sick. Do you mind drawing off that sleeve? Higher – like that – that’s right. Now the trousers. Wait, I will take his shoes off – that’s right. Now, hold him upright while I open the bed. There – let us put him in. If you think that he is going to disturb himself when it is time for me to get in you are mistaken. I have to find a little corner any place I can. That doesn’t bother him! Bah! You old pleasure seeker!’

As soon as he felt himself stretched out in his sheets the old man closed his eyes, opened them closed them again, and over his whole face appeared an energetic resolve to sleep. The doctor examined him with an ever-increasing interest and asked: ‘Does he go to all the fancy balls and try to be a young man?’ ‘To all of them, monsieur, and he comes back to me in the morning in a deplorable condition. You see, it’s regret that leads him on and that makes him put a pasteboard face over his own. Yes, the regret of no longer being what he was and of no longer making any conquests!’

He was sleeping now and beginning to snore. She looked at him with a pitying expression and continued: ‘Oh! how many conquests that man has made! More than one could believe, monsieur, more than the finest gentlemen of the world, than all the tenors and all the generals.’

‘Really? What did he do?’

‘Oh! it will surprise you at first, as you did not know him in his palmy days. When I met him it was also at a ball, for he has always frequented them. As soon as I saw him I was caught – caught like a fish on a hook. Ah! how pretty he was, monsieur, with his curly raven locks and black eyes as large as saucers! Indeed, he was good looking! He took me away that evening and I never have left him since, never, not even for a day, no matter what he did to me! Oh! he has often made it hard for me!’

The doctor asked: ‘Are you married?’

She answered simply: ‘Yes, monsieur, otherwise he would have dropped me as he did the others. I have been his wife and his servant, everything, everything that he wished. How he has made me cry – tears which I did not show him; for he would tell all his adventures to me – to me, monsieur – without understanding how it hurt me to listen.’

‘But what was his business?’

‘That’s so. I forgot to tell you. He was the foreman at Martel’s – a foreman such as they never had had – an artist who averaged ten francs an hour.’

‘Martel? – who is Martel?’

‘The hairdresser, monsieur, the great hairdresser of the Opera, who had all the actresses for customers. Yes, sir, all the smartest actresses had their hair dressed by Ambrose and they would give him tips that made a fortune for him. Ah! monsieur, all the women are alike, yes, all of them. When a man pleases their fancy they offer themselves to him. It is so easy – and it hurt me so to hear about it. For he would tell me everything – he simply could not hold his tongue – it was impossible. Those things please the men so much! They seem to get even more enjoyment out of telling than doing.

‘When I would see him coming in the evening, a little pale, with a pleased look and a bright eye, would say to myself: “One more. I am sure that he has caught one more.” Then I felt a wild desire to question him and then, again, not to know, to stop his talking if he should begin. And we would look at each other.

‘I knew that he would not keep still, that he would come to the point. I could feel that from his manner, which seemed to laugh and say: “I had a fine adventure to-day, Madeleine.” I would pretend to notice nothing, to guess nothing; I would set the table, bring on the soup and sit down opposite him.

‘At those times, monsieur, it was as if my friendship for him had been crushed in my body as with a stone. It hurt. But he did not understand; he did not know; he felt a need to tell all those things to some one, to boast, to show how much he was loved, and I was the only one he had to whom he could talk – the only one. And I would have to listen and drink it in, like poison.

‘He would begin to take his soup and then he would say: “One more, Madeleine.”

‘And I would think: “Here it comes! Goodness! what a man! Why did I ever meet him?”

‘Then he would begin: “One more! And a beauty, too.” And it would be some little one from the Vaudeville or else from the Variétés, and some of the big ones, too, some of the most famous. He would tell me their names, how their apartments were furnished, everything, everything, monsieur. Heartbreaking details. And he would go over them and tell his story over again from beginning to end, so pleased with himself that I would pretend to laugh so that he would not get angry with me.

‘Everything may not have been true! He liked to glorify himself and was quite capable of inventing such things! They may perhaps also have been true! On those evenings he would pretend to be tired and wish to go to bed after supper. We would take supper at eleven, monsieur, for he could never get back from work earlier.

‘When he had finished telling about his adventure he would walk round the room and smoke cigarettes, and he was so handsome, with his moustache and curly hair, that I would think: “It’s true, just the same, what he is telling. Since I myself am crazy about that man, why should not others be the same?” Then I would feel like crying, shrieking, running away and jumping out of the window while I was clearing the table and he was smoking. He would yawn in order to show how tired he was, and he would say two or three times before going to bed: “Ah! how well I shall sleep this evening!”

‘I bear him no ill will, because he did not know how he was hurting me. No, he could not know! He loved to boast about the women just as a peacock loves to show his feathers. He got to the point where he thought that all of them looked at him and desired him.

‘It was hard when he grew old. Oh, monsieur, when I saw his first white hair I felt a terrible shock and then a great joy – a wicked joy – but so great, so great! I said to myself: “It’s the end – it’s the end.” It seemed as if I were about to be released from prison. At last I could have him to myself, all to myself, when the others would no longer want him.

‘It was one morning in bed. He was still sleeping and I leaned over him to wake him up with a kiss, when I noticed in his curls, over his temple, a little thread which shone like silver. What a surprise! I should not have thought it possible! At first I thought of tearing it out so that he would not see it, but as I looked carefully I noticed another farther up. White hair! He was going to have white hair! My heart began to thump and perspiration stood out all over me, but away down at the bottom I was happy.

‘It was mean to feel thus, but I did my housework with a light heart that morning, without waking him up, and, as soon as he opened his eyes of his own accord, I said to him: “Do you know what I discovered while you were asleep?”

‘”No.”

‘”I found white hairs.”

‘He started up as if I had tickled him and said angrily: “It’s not true!”

‘”Yes, it is. There are four of them over your left temple.”

‘He jumped out of bed and ran over to the mirror. He could not find them. Then I showed him the first one, the lowest, the little curly one, and I said: “It’s no wonder, after the life that you have been leading. In two years all will be over for you.”

‘Well, monsieur, I had spoken true; two years later one could not recognise him. How quickly a man changes! He was still handsome, but he had lost his freshness, and the women no longer ran after him. Ah! what a life I led at that time! How he treated me! Nothing suited him. He left his trade to go into the hat business, in which he ate up all his money. Then he unsuccessfully tried to be an actor, and finally he began to frequent public balls. Fortunately, he had had common sense enough to save a little something on which we now live. It is sufficient, but it is not enormous. And to think that at one time he had almost a fortune.

‘Now you see what he does. This habit holds him like a frenzy. He has to be young; he has to dance with women who smell of perfume and cosmetics. You poor old darling!’

She was looking at her old snoring husband fondly, ready to cry. Then, gently tiptoeing up to him, she kissed his hair. The physician had risen and was getting ready to leave, finding nothing to say to this strange couple. Just as he was leaving she asked:

‘Would you mind giving me your address? If he should grow worse, I could go and get you.’

This short story by Guy de Maupassant was originally published in 1889 in L’Écho de Paris, and in 1890 in Maupassant’s short story collection, Useless Beauty.

Photograph courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art (www.moma.org).

I began modelling in my late forties, some ten years ago, and I am certain this could have not happened a decade earlier, when fashion models were only recruited among the very young. In this past decade fashion has attempted to engage with the more complex aesthetics of ageing by featuring an increasing number of ‘ageless’ faces. These older models are presented as transcending age, their appearances sometimes doctored to remove natural signs of actual ageing, like wrinkles. The prevalence of this category of model, the ‘classic,’ has been prompted by an increasing demand from older consumers that fashion be inclusive of the ageing men and women, and their dollar, in society.

We have witnessed this push towards a representation of the older consumer in magazine spreads and features which claim to introduce ‘fashionable ageing,’ but in practice only further differentiate what is appropriate to different age groups.¹ The presence of grey-haired models, generally Caucasian, on magazine pages has notably increased, like Philipp Plein’s recent campaign shot by Steven Klein, which featured the ‘ageless’ eighty-five-year-old Carmen dell’Orefice.² Having, now in my late fifties, recently modeled for British high street brand JD Williams’ autumn/winter 2016 lookbook, I too find I am receiving offers by designers in response to the demand of the high street.

Often these approaches emphasise, and appear to celebrate, the eccentricity and quirkiness of old age. This is, arguably, in effect another form of ‘Othering’ – stereotyping older women as colourful characters, often defined by their particularly flamboyant approach to styling and accessories, as in the case of Iris Apfel, now a fashion icon, and other protagonists featured by Advanced Style blogger, photographer and casting agent Ari Seth Cohen.³

Unlike similar discussions on body image and retouching, the ‘agelessness’ dictum seems to have escaped interrogation. Though an impression of individuality is delivered in these cases, there is an underlying contradiction in which the aesthetic of individualism pushes towards conforming to a group identity of ‘agelessness.’ This image fails to represent the physiological realities of ageing, and instead promotes a discourse that if one cannot be young, at least one should avoid showing marked signs of ageing.

The majority of model agencies embrace this genre and now – more so in recent years – maintain a category of models known as ‘classic.’ The classic model is a known prototype in the modelling industry, underpinned by a discourse of enduring youthfulness, a woman whose image embodies an ageless beauty, rather than an ageing reality. Classic models are often men and women with long careers behind them, models like dell’Orefice, whose beautifully structured face is totally wrinkle-free, perhaps after cosmetic surgery. From my experience in the industry I know that many of these models rarely work full time, but make themselves available should there be a casting request. These classic models appear in high fashion representing an aspirational agelessness; they are called upon to fill stereotypical roles for older women. This creates an impossible standard, one out of reach without external interventions, such as cosmetic surgery, which plays on insecurities of looking old to sell to the older market.

Despite this, there seems to be some moves towards more inclusive and authentic representations of older women. For example, the London-based Grey Model Agency, which currently represents me, eschews the ‘classic’ model template and strategically positions older, greyer men and women as ageing individuals, with personality.⁴ The agency’s model recruitment reflects this mission and the models are put forward for roles ordinarily filled by younger models in an attempt to break away from perceptions of age and subvert the industry’s ‘classic’ template.⁵ 

The relative success of the agency suggests that the modelling industry is ready for an overhaul. There are several examples from high fashion, such as Linda Rodin, chosen for a recent campaign by The Row, as well as in the beauty industry. Rossellini’s poignant rehire by virtue of her ‘agelessness,’ at the age of sixty-three, at Lancôme this year is yet another example.

The availability and manufacturing of ‘grey’ fashion models relates to the perpetuation of the construction of stereotyped identities in the older age bracket, with ‘agelessness’ as a countering of ‘ageing.’ It is indeed rare to see the aged represented in fashion, without being exoticised in this way. When Elle India featured seventy-two-year-old Belgian model and designer Loulou Van Damme on their pages this year, with minimal retouching, the issue was met with criticism.⁶ 

Van Damme’s appearance in the issue was at odds with the accepted wisdom that older models should not display recognisable signs of ageing.

What, then, is being negated by imposing ‘agelessness’? As a frame, objectively, ‘agelessness’ has much to offer, economically, to the fashion industry, through an alliance with the beauty industry and a bolstering by the advertising industry. But ‘agelessness’ makes a mockery of ageing – it is a euphemism for achieving ‘youthfulness’ at all costs.

Despite a recent popularity and demand for ageing models, the trend for high-end designers and fashion magazines should be exposed to questions around the authentic representation of age. ‘Ageless’ fashion, ‘ageless’ models, ‘ageless’ consumers are, I would contend, fictional and ultimately, highly dangerous labels. They have become a euphemism for achieving youthfulness at all costs. It is therefore incumbent upon us, as members of the fashion community and as consumers of fashion, to assess what claims are being submitted through these labels and who they advantage.

Alessandra ‘Alex Bruni’ Lopez y Royo is a freelance writer, researcher and model based in London.

1. See for example “How to dress your age for spring 2015” in Harper’s Bazaar March 2015 by Lisa Armstrong available at http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/trends/a10437/dressing-your-age-0415/ ↩

2. See Philippe Plein at http://world.philipp-plein.com ↩

3. See the post ‘50+ style: the eccentric, the elegant and the space in between’ written in 2011 by Canadian blogger Duchesse in which she discusses the Advanced Style ladies and very plainly draws out the difference between elegance and eccentricity as perceived in popular culture available at: http://passagedesperles.blogspot.it/2011/03/50-style-eccentric-elegant-and-space-in.html ↩

4. See Rebecca Valentine ‘Festival of Marketing to the 50+. Making the horse drink’ available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/festival-marketing-50-making-horse-drink-rebecca-valentine ↩

5. See for example the ‘Feel Unique’ campaign 2016 with model Angela C. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHyAURUQwUc ↩

6. See the comments on the blog post ‘Ageless beauty: 72 year old Loulou van Damme’ in That’s not my Age, the blog by fashion journalist Alyson Walsh http://thatsnotmyage.com/beauty-over-40/ageless-beauty-72-year-old-loulou-van-damme-elle-india. ↩