When we hear about someone who has undergone plastic surgery for the specific purpose of looking like a celebrity, it is normally a shock. This phenomenon always seemed quite uncommon, but a new article released by The New York Times suggests otherwise. Author Abby Ellin interviewed a number of random people from different parts of the U.S. who have all had surgical procedures to look like their favorite celebrities, and the explanations given by all of the interviewees actually sound pretty normal. There has been so much bad press about people who have literally undergone surgical nightmares, botching their face in the meantime, to look like someone else. The NYT article illustrates how plastic surgery can still have an attractive and successful outcome when the patient wants the result to resemble their favorite celebrity.
Our favorite account from the article chronicles the journey of a California woman who wanted to look more like Heather Locklear. We think her story is wonderful because her surgical results turned out to be subtle, and did not distract from her natural beauty. Her physcian, Dr. Burr von Maur, a renowned plastic surgeon practicing in Newport Beach, obviously can take a lot of the credit. We love how Dr. von Maur respected his patient’s desire to look like Heather, and used this as the “inspiration” (but not the complete surgical blueprint) for his patient’s surgery. He stated, “You can never duplicate something; you can’t clone somebody…It’s best to enhance the patient’s own features, so we can unearth the beauty that lies underneath without radically altering their appearance.” We think this is an amazing philosophy and outlook.
In the photo above, the patient actually does slightly resemble Heather Locklear- at least there are a few similarities to be noted, such as prominent cheeks and facial bone structure, a petite nose, and dramatic eyes. Still, we would never guess that any surgical work was done- the result of the patient’s rhinoplasty looks natural and subtle, and her face looks balanced and well proportioned.
The rest of the accounts sound fairly “normal” too, without anyone going to extreme lengths to look like someone else. It makes total sense to us, just like when going to the hair salon, one often brings a snap shot of hair “inspiration” that is usually taken from a celebrity. We think it’s fine for people to extend celebrity inspiration to the realm of plastic surgery, as long as their expectations are within reason. Just as we know we may be able to emulate Jennifer Aniston’s hair color or hair style, but unfortunately can’t have her actual hair (bummer!), we may want to emulate someone’s great nose without completely duplicating it.
