Almost exactly a year ago I visited a Harley Street address, notebook in hand, to interview a plastic surgeon, a number of his staff and a few of his satisfied clients. The story was simple: business was good. The place was high-ceilinged and expensively decorated. In the UK the number of cosmetic surgical procedures had increased to record levels, by a whopping 13% year on year, in line with a decade-long upward trend.
What a difference a year makes. Figures just released by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps) show that procedures actually dropped by 40% in 2016. A total of 31,000 cosmetic surgeries were performed in the UK last year, fewer than in 2007. It’s one of those statistics that seems to indicate – in contrast to all the other evidence – that sometime last year people started to see sense.
In a press statement Baaps cited several possible explanations for the decline, from uncertainty surrounding the EU referendum to “global fragility”. It’s also been suggested that larger cultural forces – mainly Instagram – have left us with less rigid ideas about beauty.
The thing about such a surprising reversal is that no one knows exactly what’s behind it. It makes sense that in times of upheaval people are reluctant to make life-changing decisions or commit to big purchases, but there was no corresponding drop in first-time mortgages or foreign holidays. It’s true that more people are opting for non-surgical cosmetic procedures, which are cheaper and less invasive, but that’s been the case for some time.
I’d love to believe that the public has begun to seen the light regarding the often illusory benefits of cosmetic surgery, but if I had to guess I’d say it was plastic surgeons themselves who are driving this shift. Non-surgical procedures are cheaper for them too, and they can do lots more of them. The practice I visited last year had already thoroughly diversified into Botox, thread-lifting, and proprietorial anti-ageing ointments.
Non-surgical clients require no hospital stay, and they have to keep coming back because the treatments wear off. Plastic surgery remains risky, and comes with tiresome ethical obligations on the part of the surgeon. It’s estimated that about half of plastic surgeons turn away 10% of all patients, and that one in five surgeons turns away a third. You don’t have to tell a patient they may be having Botox for the wrong reasons.
Corner shop chaos
The other day I went to buy milk and a newspaper from the corner shop. I’ve done the same thing every day, at roughly the same time, for about 15 years, more or less on autopilot.. On this occasion I arrived to find that two freezer cabinets had been moved to the spot where the newspapers used to be. I like to think of myself as a rational and perceptive being, quick to adapt to small adjustments in my immediate surroundings, but that doesn’t quite square with my behaviour in this instance: I stared at the freezers in total incomprehension for about 20 seconds, my jaw hanging open.
The first conclusion I drew was that I’d walked into the wrong shop, or maybe a different universe. It wasn’t until another customer came in and experienced the same bafflement alongside me that I figured out what was going on. I found the newspapers on another shelf, bought one and left, forgetting the milk.
Dumb and dumberer
I spent the rest of that day appraising the world around me with renewed suspicion, which made me realise how important it is to have one’s environment disrupted from time to time; if you don’t notice something is amiss, chances are you won’t notice anything. I wish I could say this heightened sense of awareness stayed with me, but I went back to the shop the next day and performed the whole dumbshow of stupidity all over again, although I did at least remember the milk. It’s amazing we’re allowed to drive.
Is Brexit really to blame for the decline in plastic surgery? | Tim Dowling
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