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 ↩

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. ↩