Cosmetic Surgery and the Fashionable Face

Abstract

This article traces some of the relations between cosmetic surgery and fashion, arguing that they both operate inside a cultural aesthetic where two-dimensional images intertwine with three-dimensional “reality.” This is both a complex and a simple idea; my concern is not to definitively categorize the nature of this relationship but rather to discern some of the ways that people negotiate it. Profound tensions, ambivalences, and concerns arise from the interaction of two dimensions and three dimensions. We find ourselves operating between them, layering them, climbing from one to the other, and trying to reconcile them—the face of the cosmetic surgery recipient exemplifies this struggle.

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