beauty - Laclinic

beauty
Kate
isn't as
beautiful
aswe
••
Itta es
bra- to
wo out if
you h ve
perfect
feat es,
saysOrv·a
Falcon
96 TAllER
What is it about Kate Moss that makes her so
goddamn gorgeous? Is it her perfectly sculpted
cheekbones, her retrousse nose or her almond-shaped
eyes? According to Dr Michel Pfulg, an eminent
plastic surgeon: 'Beauty has its laws. Throughout
history the most seductive women have been the ones
whose face and body measurements are precisely
proportioned. Kate Moss is very nearly perfect, but her
mouth is slightly too small. Ideally, it should be two
millimetres wider:
Dr Pfulg isn't bad looking himself - but what
qualifies him to be so nit-picky? Although Pfulg does
all kinds of operation, from liposculpting necks to
boob jobs, his special interest is the face, which he
measures before surgery on something he calls 'the
golden grid' of beauty. This is a set of mathematical
calculations that he claims tells him precisely how
beautiful a woman is and helps him decide what she
might need to improve her looks.
LaClinic (tel: 00 41 219 66 2000; laclinicch), his
headquarters in Switzerland, is one of the most
exclusive anti-ageing clinics in Europe. This is the
place to learn about the laws of attraction, on which
he's something of an expert, and to see how some
of London's most photographed faces measure up
to his scrutiny.
Set in the hills above Montreux, LaClinic is the
place to come if you are considering serious changes.
On the outside the building looks like a smart chalet;
inside, there is a state-of-the-art operating theatre,
with an in-house dentist, a hair-transplant clinic, a
resident endocrinologist (who specialises in balancing
hormones) and a spa offering Carita anti-ageing
treatments. The whole place is also decorated with
Dr Pfulg's museum-quality modern art collection - it
puts the boys on Nip/Tuck to shame It is also highly
discreet, with 10 rooms overlooking beautiful Lake
Geneva which, set against a brilliant blue sky and
snow-capped Alps, looks like a giant mirror.
Dr Pfulg established LaClinic a few years ago after
he left his post as a surgeon at the Clinique La Prairie
just down the hill. He began his training 27 years
ago underYves-Gerard Illouz, the man who invented
the liposuction technique, and Bruce Connell, an
American surgeon nicknamed 'the pope of the [>
Kate
Moss
9/ 0
We've done the maths. Tatler gives Kate a nearly perfect nine out of 10.
It's her mouth that lets her down, as it's a tiny bit too small in proportion to the rest
of her features. But ironically, says Or Pfulg, this is the secret of her success, as it
makes her a human beauty rather than a cold beauty. Kate also has what Pfulg
calls the 'star's eye', a feline upward tilt of the eye that makes it super-seductive:
'I'm often asked to get this look when I do surgery. When you perform a brow or
temporal lift you can subtly enhance the shape of the eye, but you have to be careful
not to overplay it or you end up with a wind-tunnel look.' Kate also has the perfect
waist/hip ratio. A woman's waist should be one third less than her hips - this drives
men mad with desire. Sex symbols from supermodels Claudia Schiffer and Cindy
Crawford to Rubens's voluptuous women have this proportion (in men, the ideal is a
waist 10 per cent slimmer than the hips) 'The good news: says Pfulg, 'is that weight
is not really important. If you have these proportions, you're off to a good start.'
Sienna
Miller
9/10
With her youthful skin and regular
features, Or Pfulg declares Sienna a
great beauty. However, his sharp
eye detectsjhat her mouth looks
unnaturally swollen. He speculates
that maybe she's had filler Injections in
her lips. 'If you relax your mouth, you
should naturally be able to see the tips
of your upper two incisors. But if
you put filler in your lips you don't
see the teeth any more. I would
recommend Sienna leaves her lips
alone' He also, alarmingly, spots
what looks likes a faint moustache.
'Sienna is pretty much perfect.
The only thing I would prescribe for
her is some laser hair removaL'
Victoria
Beckham
6/ 0
Try as she might to
emulate royalty, Posh has
less than regal features.
Facially speaking, she is
the opposite of Ca milia
as she has a broad
mid-face that is not in
proportion with the
rest of her features. 'This
is difficult to correct,'
says Pfulg, 'but a
procedure to slim down
her nose might help.'
Other areas need to be
fattened up: 'Dieting is
talking its toll - her lower
face looks drawn and
thin.' On the upside, Posh
gets good marks for her
profile, which Or Pfulg
declares to be particularly
attractive because
her upper lip protrudes
slightly over the lower,
creating an attractive
angle All the better
for air-kissing, darling.
The
Duchess of
Cornwall
7/ 0
The Prince of Wales wiJl be
pleased. 'The architecture
of Camilla's face is actually
very good,' says Or Pflug.
'Her main problem is tile
middle segment, which
looks squashed Her eyebrows are a bit low and
she Ilas heavy upper-eyelids: I could Improve
this by giving her a brow lift, which would open
up her eyes, make the middle segment a little bit
longer and balance her features. Her mouth is
the perfect width as It lines up with the centre
of the Iris In her eyes, but her upper lip is a
little bit too low. This is a problem with ageing,
as the space between the mouth and the nose
tends to become longer as the face falls. His
prescription: 'I could make a small Incision at the
base of the nose to pull up the lip by about
two millimetres.' For many years Cam ilia has
been compared to (and haunted by) Oiana's
iconic beauty, but Or Pfulg tells me Camilla is
more beautiful than we think. 0
beauty
<J Jacelift'. People really took note of Pfulg's skill when
he repaired a bobsleigher's face after a horrific crash
on the Cresta Run, with miraculous results.
Or Pfulg starts 'to explain: 'To find the perfect face
we must use the da Vinci code: Forget Oan Brown's
novel- this is the real da Vinci code, a mathematical
way of measuring beauty by calculating perfect
proportions. 'Leonardo unlocked the secret of divine
beauty when he illustrated a book on proportions
in nature: says Pfulg, who is also an accomplished
artist and author and thus a bit of a Renaissance man
himself. 'He divided the face into three equal parts: the
first goes from the top of the forehead to the eyebrows,
the second from the eyebrows to the base of the nose
and the third from the base of the nose to the tip of
the chin. What da Vinci discovered was that ideally
each of these parts should be of equal length. Also, for
perfect balance, the distance from the base of the nose
to the middle of the lips must be exactly one third
of the clistance from the middle of the lips to the base of
the chin. Symmetry is the key to beauty:
Pfulg uses the golden ratio 0.618 - a proportion
found in great works of art, from the Parthenon and
the Pyramids to the Mona Lisa - which supposedly
signifies physical harmony. In the human body,
for example, divide the clistance from the head to the
navel by the distance from the navel to the base of the
feet - the closer you are to 0.618, the hotter. Our eyes
are particularly seduced by proportions that respect this
magical number, which may be hardwired into
our brains: tests show that babies appear to
prefer features judged handsome by adults.
Forget pining to be a perfect size 10 or scary
size zero: 0.618 is the number we should be
aiming for.
'I use the golden number a lot in my
practice: says Pfulg. 'As an artist, I often attend
painters' workshops to keep my eye focused.
The best plastic surgeons look
at the patient from an artist's
point of view. I'm dismayed
to see so many people
agree to an operation
after a consultation with a
nurse without meeting the surgeon.
Women say they want Nicole
Kidman's nose or Angelina Jolie's lips
and too many surgeons go
:Y along with this, instead of
evaluating them and saying,
"Your nose is perfect, it's your
forehead that needs lifting"
or "It's not your mouth we
must change but your teeth:'
In my opinion, recognising
the signature of a surgeon
on his patients is a flaw.
When I work on a face I
always try to find the ideal
proportions while saving
its authenticity:
So what does Or
Pfulg make of Oll[
British beauties?
Jemima
Khan
7/10
Rivals Jemima and
Elizabeth Hurley actually
have a very similar
structure of the upper
face, notes Or Pfulg,
although he says Liz is
classically prettier.
Jemima has a nice profile
but the main problem
is her lower face - the
distance between her
nose and her chin is too
long, which gives her
quite a masculine Jaw.
She could achieve the
illusion of a thinner
lower face with a
subtle chin implant, a
trick that Hollywood
starlets such as Marilyn
Monroe made famous
in the Fifties.
Elizabeth
Hurley
9/10
Two weddings, countless Estee Lauder
modelling campaigns and that dress...
you have to hand it to Elizabeth - she's
a woman who knows how to work it.
But Or Pfulg says she Is blessed with
pretty much ideal proportions anyway:
'Of all the women I have evaluated,
Elizabeth and Kate Moss are the best,
both measuring closest to the golden
number with an impressive 0.617
Elizabeth's face has three completely
even horizontal sections and the
widths of her mouth, nose and eyes
are all perfectly in proportion She is
a modern day Helen of Troy, begUiling
men with her beauty.'