The US election brought with it a new facial aesthetic – that of both the first lady and Ivanka Trump. But what is so desirable about their features?
Every time has a face or two that come to represent what we are supposed to find most beautiful (usually: white and thin). Now, with depressing inevitability, it seems as if Ivanka and Melania Trump-inspired faces are climbing the most-wanted list at plastic surgeons’ clinics. Norman Rowe, a surgeon in Manhattan, New York, has been seeing several women a month who cite Ivanka as their face inspiration, although, to be clear, we are talking dozens here rather than thousands. “I never saw [anyone who wished to copy Ivanka’s face] before the primary,” Rowe told celebrity website Page Six, “since the summer of ‘16 … [it has been] maybe four a month; one a week.”
Some women, said Rowe, were spending up to $40,000 (£30,000) on temporary fillers and Botox, and up to $50,000 (£37,000) for more invasive procedures such as rhinoplasty and cheek implants. Earlier this year, Franklin Rose, a surgeon in Houston, Texas, told USA Today: “Ivanka is sort of the new style icon for plastic surgery.” (He also reportedly offers a “Melania makeover”.)
In the UK, Tijion Esho, who founded the ESHO clinic and specialises in non-surgical procedures, says he has had “a few clients” who have mentioned Ivanka as an inspiration – one was someone who had met her recently and was taken with her jawline.
He says it is physically possible to change one’s face into something closer to a celebrity’s, as long as there are enough structural similarities to begin with, but he says it would be unethical. “When someone says they want to look like someone else, your first concern should always be: has this person got body dysmorphia? Are they trying to attain something that isn’t realistic?”
Last year, Julian de Silva, a London-based surgeon, created a picture of his “perfect” face, made up of a record he claims to have kept of the most-requested celebrity features. The most popular nose was the Duchess of Cambridge’s, while other patients asked for Keira Knightley’s eyes, Penelope Cruz’s lips and Miley Cyrus’s forehead.
In the more than 10 years he has been practising, Esho has seen trends of celebrity faces come and go, at least for female patients. For a while, he says, “everybody wanted to look like Angelina Jolie. Then people wanted to go for a Jennifer Aniston look – softer. Then it was Jennifer Lopez – fuller features.” In recent years, he says, the Kardashians have been the most influential, “where people want [strong] brows, strong cheekbones, larger lips – more exaggerated features”.
It has a lot to do with exposure, says Alan Matarasso, a cosmetic surgeon in New York – and, yes, over the last year he has seen an increase in the number of patients who mention the Trumps when talking about what they would like to change about their faces. “There’s no question that whenever an attractive, popular figure appears in the media a lot, you will get this,” he says. “It’s human nature. It’s not exclusive to these two women, but [they] are front and centre now. But I could get all the exposure in the world and I doubt people will be walking into plastic surgeons’ offices wanting to look like me. So they also happen to be the right look at the right time.”
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