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Jennings and several other bankers he knows had already had Botox injections — not out of vanity, he says, or even to conceal aging. The bankers want to avoid "frowning or looking stressed. We're in a very, very high pressured environment, we're working 18-hour days, weekends, bank holidays, and it's important to look your best � like you can take it in your stride." Donato Massimi, 60, from Rome, is another male who knows what stress is like. "I have to have a dynamic and youthful image," he says. Massimi's firm, Charme International, equips spas and wellness centers. Gotta look as good as the clients — even if Massimi's 19-year-old son was skeptical about Dad's face-lift. But as Massimi says, "He's had a classical education."
As did Silvio Berlusconi, who turns 70 in September. But Italy's Prime Minister retains a belief in the importance of maintaining his public face. He has admitted to having an eye-lift in 2003, and has followed that up with at least one hair transplant. Last month the French daily Libération claimed that some contenders for the presidency in next year's elections have started polishing their images too. According to its report, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin no longer sports a mole on his noble brow, and Ségolène Royal, one of the Socialist Party's possible candidates, had her teeth redone. "The French people's favorite Socialist is now endowed with an American smile," wrote Libération, with the characteristic hauteur of heroes of the French left.
Anyway, what's wrong with an American smile? Dr. Jonathan Cole, a professor and a hospital consultant in clinical neurophysiology at Poole and Salisbury Hospitals in southwestern England, has studied the relation between the self and the face, and can explain why it pays to look good. "Before the Industrial Revolution," he says, "your society might extend to 200 or so people. Now you see thousands of people. You see them but you don't interact. The only way people make an impact on each other is through the visible self." Men such as Jennings and Massimi say their cosmetic interventions are helping them to make the right impact; cosmetic surgery, in other words, is as much a professional tool as an indulgence. And unlike many women who came of age before the word post was surgically grafted onto the proboscis of feminism, the majority of men contemplating surgery aren't consumed with guilt. They may worry about what their friends will think. They don't agonize about betraying their sex.
In the end, most men — and women — have cosmetic surgery because they think it will make them look good. Back home in Bordeaux, Thierry Moreau and his new pectorals have been getting acquainted. They aren't bosom pals, as yet. "I think they are disproportionately large," he says, but then, it may be three weeks before all swelling subsides. Then he's sure he'll be pleased — and, if not, he'd consider more surgery. "It's like it's a foreign body, not really part of my physique yet," he says.
Ozlem Avan remembers when her newly reshaped nose was still engorged. But she and the nose "became friends right away because it looked 100% natural," she says. Avan, now 24 and a student in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, was still a teenager in 12th grade when she persuaded her parents to pay for her surgery at the One-Plast clinic in Istanbul, Turkey. Like the majority of the younger patients interviewed by Time, her approach to surgery is buoyed by a good outcome and untainted by guilt or embarrassment. "You remain the same individual, whatever you look like — because ultimately it's your inner values that count," she opines.
Another young patient, Spaniard Virginia Pozas, 27, describes her series of operations as "absolutely necessary." Spain, according to isaps, is the biggest market for cosmetic surgery in Europe, and the one with the greatest percentage of operations performed on the under-21s. Dr. Vicente del Pino Paredes, a Madrid surgeon, first reduced Pozas' stomach capacity; he followed that up by giving her a tummy tuck and a breast augmentation. Why the breasts? Because that's what Pozas wanted. And all went swimmingly; her weight has plunged from 117 kg to 60 kg, and her boyfriend has more than once been forced to deny that he's squiring a new woman. Says his remodeled girlfriend: "I have a lot more confidence now, more self-esteem."
Shapely and blond, Pozas has undoubtedly moved closer to cultural ideals of glamour. Doubtless, that will be good for her career prospects. But if the majority of young Europeans start employing cosmetic surgeons to fix perceived defects, will they begin also to eradicate their individuality and distinctive national traits?
Dr. Jean-Luc Roffé, a plastic surgeon at the Clinique St. Martin in Normandy, thinks not. "My French patients come in wanting small breasts on the cheap that nobody will notice. My American patients come in wanting big breasts that cost a lot of money that everyone will notice," he says. Wendy Lewis isn't so confident that la différence will survive. "Images of beauty are homogenizing," she says. "Brazil used to be the home of the breast reduction because they liked pert, small breasts and big bottoms. That's gone. Now they can't keep silicone implants on the shelves down there. And Korean women come to me with massive big cheekbones a Western woman would kill for that they want shaved down."
So should Europe prepare to bid adieu to Jeanne Moreau and say a big howdy to Pamela Anderson? Not necessarily. The rich, always adept at finding ways to distinguish themselves from others, are already developing a new aesthetic. When the British edition of Harper's Bazaar polled its affluent readers to find whom they considered most beautiful, the top five were all brunets. Sure, there were bombshells like Angelina Jolie, but also more cerebral choices such as Sofia Coppola and Nigella Lawson — a far cry from the Californian blonds who until recently represented the ideal. "Readers wanted beauties that look different. There was almost a reaction against the blond, perfect stereotype," says editor Lucy Yeomans. Being thin and tanned used to be a sure sign of wealth, she adds, but now simply looking different from the clones might be enough to cut a dash.
So will that make ugly the new black? Unlikely. Aesthetics may shift and new ideals take hold, but the premium Europeans place on beauty will continue to soar. It's all unfolding much as feminist author Naomi Wolf predicted 16 years ago in her book, The Beauty Myth. Women, on the cusp of economic parity with men, were being tricked into diverting their energies, said Wolf, obsessing instead about their physical imperfections. But Wolf failed to foresee that men might be ensnared by the same obsessions. Or that, in a faster, flickering, image-rich world, transforming your appearance might be the quickest route to transforming your whole life. After all, as Europeans are learning, it's what's on the outside that counts.