Beauty and youth

The fashion world has always been associated with beauty and youth. We are constantly seeing younger and younger models strut down the runway with perfect skin, size 0 hips and pouty lips (I’m not jealous – I swear!). \nThis obsession, while unavoidable, is actually seriously worrying me. It is everywhere, and the way this insecurity displays itself is through the rise in plastic surgery.\nThe allure of plastic surgery is touted all over. Celebrities deny having it, claiming they are just genetically-gifted. TV shows are based around it, with Nip/Tuck emotionally violating my roommate and me every Tuesday evening, and Dr. 90210 becoming one of E! Network’s most popular shows. Movies embrace it and see it as a step in the aging process (“Clueless,” anyone, where Cher tells the audience her mother died from a freak accident during a routine liposuction?). \nBut what happens when this plastic surgery obsession reaches the boiling point? First of all, we end up with everyone looking like Joan Rivers (yikes!), but we also end up with people like Kanye West’s mother Donda dying during a tummy tuck and breast reduction. Is death in the name of youth really something our society would like to establish as fashionable?\nI am not saying the fashion industry is totally responsible for plastic surgery. But with the lines between fashion and pop culture being continually blurred, the industry certainly has had some influence on how we see youth and beauty. Supermodels such as Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks look as good or better than they did when they rose as stars, and it is hard for real women to look at these women and not think, “Why can’t I look like that?” \nAge is also an issue in the fashion industry. With models becoming stars at 15-, 16- and 17- years old, mature women have fewer people to look up to when it comes to style and beauty icons. We are increasingly obsessed with these young models, and while not meaning to, we as women become obsessed with youth, which in turn spurs thousands of nips and tucks every year.\nPlastic surgery is not all bad. I am not opposed to someone having plastic surgery if one needs it for health reasons, but when it is for vanity reasons, I am opposed. Whatever happened to aging gracefully and looking forward to what is to come? Personally, I can’t wait to be old and gray, sitting in a rocking chair on a porch somewhere. OK, this is not totally true. I can wait, but I do look forward to it. \nThis obsession with youth and beauty that the fashion industry helps to perpetuate is both worrying and dangerous. Women should love the differences and quirks that make them who they are, and not try to fit into this mold of what society thinks they should be. The only thing plastic surgery reveals is our dysfunctional relationship with beauty, not the true beauty that lies within.