12 images Created 25 Aug 2011
CHINA NIP AND TUCK
The beautician from Chairman Mao’s home town looks at herself in the mirror and bursts into tears of joy. Forty pounds lighter, jaw slimmer, eyes and nose refined, breasts lifted, 30-year-old Chen Jing has just been through an extreme makeover for a Chinese reality show called Lovely Cinderella.
It’s a sharp insight into China’s own makeover, as a consumer generation moves ever further from communist founding father Mao Zedong’s era of drab-is-beautiful austerity.
Men and women together spent $12 billion US on beauty products in 2005, up 13 per cent from the previous year, according to the China Association of Perfume, Essence and Cosmetics Industry.
The United States Cosmetic, Fragrance, and Toiletry Association last year called China its “largest future growth market,” and companies like Avon Products Inc., Mary Kay Inc., L’Oreal SA, and Procter & GambleCo. are all fighting for a share.
HaoLulu, a Beijing fashion writer and aspiring actress, became a sensation in the Chinese media— which dubbed her the “Artificial Beauty”— after she had 16 surgeries to redo her eyes, lips, nose, cheeks, neck, breasts, upper arms, buttocks, thighs and calves.
The risks some take for beauty can be harrowing, especially in an industry that lacks regulation.
Wang Junhong, a 37-year-old fashion retailer from Guangzhou in south China’s Guangdong province, collected elegant European trousers that sheadored but couldn’t wear because she was only 5-foot-2.
So she spent $9,700 to gain five centimetres in a procedure that involved breaking her legs, driving pins into the bone and gradually cranking the pins apart tolengthen thebones as they heal.
“The more I thought about doing it, the moreI was convinced I had to do it,” said Wang, as she lay in a hospital bed in 2005, her legs encased in brutal-looking frames with spokes that jabbed through her bones.
Her treatment went smoothly, but Chinese media frequently report on bungles that result in deformity and infection. In November, the Health Ministry banned the procedure except for medical reasons.
Lovely Cinderella producer Wang Zhiyi said that while his show is meant as entertainment, it’s also cautionary. The footage is graphic, showing grotesquely swollen post-operative faces and surgeons vigorously sucking fat from a contestant’s waist.
A video clip shows Chen, the beautician, crying out on the operating table for her husband and for more anesthetic. Later, she is shown throwing up and weeping in her hospital room because shemisses her five-year-old son.
But as she gazes at herself in front of the studio audience, the memories seem to evaporate like the theatrical fog blasted out of fire extinguishers as she steps to the mirror. Text by Alexa Olesen
It’s a sharp insight into China’s own makeover, as a consumer generation moves ever further from communist founding father Mao Zedong’s era of drab-is-beautiful austerity.
Men and women together spent $12 billion US on beauty products in 2005, up 13 per cent from the previous year, according to the China Association of Perfume, Essence and Cosmetics Industry.
The United States Cosmetic, Fragrance, and Toiletry Association last year called China its “largest future growth market,” and companies like Avon Products Inc., Mary Kay Inc., L’Oreal SA, and Procter & GambleCo. are all fighting for a share.
HaoLulu, a Beijing fashion writer and aspiring actress, became a sensation in the Chinese media— which dubbed her the “Artificial Beauty”— after she had 16 surgeries to redo her eyes, lips, nose, cheeks, neck, breasts, upper arms, buttocks, thighs and calves.
The risks some take for beauty can be harrowing, especially in an industry that lacks regulation.
Wang Junhong, a 37-year-old fashion retailer from Guangzhou in south China’s Guangdong province, collected elegant European trousers that sheadored but couldn’t wear because she was only 5-foot-2.
So she spent $9,700 to gain five centimetres in a procedure that involved breaking her legs, driving pins into the bone and gradually cranking the pins apart tolengthen thebones as they heal.
“The more I thought about doing it, the moreI was convinced I had to do it,” said Wang, as she lay in a hospital bed in 2005, her legs encased in brutal-looking frames with spokes that jabbed through her bones.
Her treatment went smoothly, but Chinese media frequently report on bungles that result in deformity and infection. In November, the Health Ministry banned the procedure except for medical reasons.
Lovely Cinderella producer Wang Zhiyi said that while his show is meant as entertainment, it’s also cautionary. The footage is graphic, showing grotesquely swollen post-operative faces and surgeons vigorously sucking fat from a contestant’s waist.
A video clip shows Chen, the beautician, crying out on the operating table for her husband and for more anesthetic. Later, she is shown throwing up and weeping in her hospital room because shemisses her five-year-old son.
But as she gazes at herself in front of the studio audience, the memories seem to evaporate like the theatrical fog blasted out of fire extinguishers as she steps to the mirror. Text by Alexa Olesen
