My grandmother had breast surgery in her early fifties. It was in the 1980s, aesthetic medicine was much less advanced. She lived a butcher’s shop.
Posted on February 20
Why had she wanted this operation? Because one day, on a beach in Acapulco, a wave had loosened the straps of her bathing suit and revealed to everyone her chest, which she found ugly with age. There is also that cosmetic surgery was becoming more and more popular.
His misadventure convinced me that a scalpel would never touch me for aesthetic reasons. But it’s easy to have this conviction when you’re 12 years old. As I got older, the promise-filled “non-invasive” surgery industry grew and kept catching my eye. Injections, CoolSculpting, laser, pulsed light, photorejuvenation, thermage… I don’t know a woman who hasn’t been tempted at least once by a little touch-up here or there using these treatments that bypass real surgery , as the facelift or liposuction. The panoply continues to expand, and to add pressure. Assuming your age in front of the cameras becomes increasingly difficult when so many people resort to small interventions. I’m not going to judge them.
All the seduction of these “non-invasive” solutions is based on a certain security, that is to correct things that bother us, without too many side effects, and to avoid ending up in an episode of the show Botched surgery.
However, although these treatments are generally safe, adverse reactions can occur. That’s what happened to supermodel Linda Evangelista, who revealed she was “brutally disfigured” and “deformed” by a few CoolSculpting sessions. Instead of removing the fat cells that were targeted, the treatment caused them to multiply and harden. She is one of the unlucky women who developed paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, a very rare reaction. Linda Evangelista decided to come out of her silence in a magazine interview People, and to sue for 50 million dollars the company at the origin of his misfortune. “I loved being on the podium,” she said. Now I’m afraid to run into someone I know. I can no longer live like this, in hiding and in shame. I can no longer live in this pain. »
PHOTO FROM THE INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT OF PEOPLE
Linda Evangelista on the cover of the magazine People
We are talking here about Linda Evangelista. Muse of fashion in the 1990s, which saw the rise of the domination of top models, when they were as famous as actresses, for the simple fact of being beautiful. Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Linda Evangelista were in all of our magazines. They haven’t really been replaced since in terms of celebrity and they are still invited to fashion shows, so iconic is their status.
Besides, we continue to follow them to see how it ages, a top model. The answer ? It has no right to grow old, a top model. They remain spectacular. If at 20 we were complexed by looking at them, at 50, it is no longer possible, we throw in the towel. Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss have not aged a bit, the Crawfords and Schiffers can pose in swimsuits next to their daughters, shading them. But that’s their job, to be perfect; they are professionals and they have experience over time.
And Linda Evangelista fell off the podium wanting to stay there, in just a few treatments. Looking at the photos, I thought the word “disfigured” was overstated. Evangelista looks like a very beautiful 56-year-old woman, despite everything. But she has no right to be that; she must be Linda Evangelista. And you know what ? I have immense compassion for her.
My God, we love to see women whose beauty has been their power tumble. We all click on the photo galleries “What happened to them? », in search of the one that has grown, softened, or been transformed by too many operations. Recently, the paparazzi photographed Bridget Fonda, who is now 58 years old. The actress, revealed in the film Single White Female, left showbiz a long time ago. Why are they pursuing her 12 years after her retirement from public life, if not to humiliate her?
We talk more and more about shaming. A very effective English word to sum up what women are subjected to when it comes to their bodies: making them feel ashamed of themselves.
Because they are too sexy, because they are not sexy enough, because they are fat, because they are skinny, because they age too much or because they refuse to age. One thing is certain: if the surgery misses them, we won’t miss them in our judgments, as if they were the only ones responsible for the mess.
Under these conditions, body dysmorphic disorder becomes almost a generalized disorder. Most women don’t look like they want to look, and what they want to look like doesn’t come from them. It’s a battle lost in advance, but which we want to lead all the same, and which moreover divides women among themselves.
And it needs to be talked about, like Linda Evangelista does, because it changes the conversation. Where are the truth, lies, hypocrisy and compassion? The older I get, the less I feel like lying or being lied to. But I am not a model. Even less a top model. This does not prevent me from being in solidarity with the approach of Linda Evangelista, who reminds us that even a model of her caliber is not satisfied with her physique and that everything that is non-invasive is not 100% without danger.