Smooth Operators
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One does noses, the other just eyes. The plastic surgeon of the ‘90s,
more often than not, is a specialist. Here, a look into the lives and
minds of some of the country’s best.
Did you like the caviar, Doctor?
A satisfied customer
with Iranian connections is making nice to Sherrell Jerone Aston. M.D.
Nothing is too good for such a miracle worker, a surgeon who can erase
years.
We will not be making judgments today about the relevance or
political correctness of cosmetic surgery. In a perfect world, we would
all be valued for brains, wit and how good we are to our mothers. We
are going to assume here that so long as you continue to draw breath,
you will care about looking youthfully, competitively attractive, and
that when Clairol Estee Lauder and Jenny Craig have given their all to
the cause, you may consider surgical enhancement. Although such
rejuvenation is now regarded in a more casual and diminutive manner (“a
little nip and tuck”), it is still surgery. There are 1,000 members of
the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, and some of them
make a living by correcting the mistakes of other members. This is no
time for amateurs, old coots or bargains. You want a doctor who is
(ahem) on the cutting edge.
The plastic surgeons singled out here—one specialist per,
shall we say, body part—are among the-best in their profession. They
teach courses at venerable universities. They have made ground-breaking
strides in the technique of their specialties. And they‘ve
“done” the women we look at in magazines and movies and at lunch at The
Ivy. Funny enough, when Town & Country approached these doctors to
participate in this story and asked them to recommend other top
surgeons, they almost all wound up mentioning each other.
Dr. Sherrell J. Aston: Face Value
Lite FM broadcasts from
Operating Room 1 at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat hospital. Rod Stewart
is singing as Sherrell (pronounced Shir-ELLE) Aston’s patient is rolled
in, her face and scalp marked with purple “Skin Skribe” in the exact
places to be cut. The usually dapper doctor is well disguised in
regulation green scrubs, blue booties wrapped around running shoes and
an extremely nonregulation printed cap, courtesy of his girlfriend. The
soon to be divorced Aston already jogged around Central Park and had a
boss of granola before his first surgery of the day, at 7:30. He’s been
staving off his own aging process, eating high-carb/low-fat and jogging
since his Virginia childhood. ‘The neighbors would say, ‘What’s wrong
with that boy?’” he recalls. “But I’ll also have my face lifted, no
question about that. I want to live long enough in good health to need
at least three face-lifts.”
Today he’s doing the face, forehead and eyelids of a
59-year-old woman who has run for high public office. Perhaps you think
your face includes your forehead and eyelids, but in this nomenclature,
a face-lift includes everything from the collarbone to the corners of
the eyes ($12,000 to $15.000). Forehead ($6,000) and eyes ($6,000 to
$7.000) are a la carte. Younger patients may qualify for the “mini
lift” (a term Aston dislikes for its day-at-the- spa connotations),
which excludes the neck and costs about half.
The clenched face-lift that makes you look like you’ve been
strapped to the wing of a plane is an anachronism. ‘Today the way the
skin is pulled to create tension is different,” explains Aston,” so we
don’t see from well-trained plastic surgeons the tight faces of a few
years ago, when the operation was mainly pulling the skin up. Now, most
of the tension is placed on the underlying foundation, the muscles and
the fascia [the muscle lining] covering them. In order to accomplish
the hardest part of a face-lift, which is the droop in the midportion
of the face, we actually lift that fat pad and put it back up on the
cheekbone where it came from. That’s one of the most recent advances in
face-lifting.
“We can even do an endoscopic forehead lift, using a tiny television
camera, just like an orthopedist fixing cartilage in your knee, and
making little incisions to take out the muscles that cause scowling,”
he continues. “That stuff is about a year and a half old. Where we are
right now would have been considered fifteen years ago a very
aggressive approach. We’ve refined the techniques so much that we’ve
pushed the envelope.”
In the OR this envelope-pushing looks like A Nightmare on Elm Street,
or Cocoon, in which the aliens peel off their earthly countenances. I
also keep thinking of dieters who strip the skin off chicken breasts.
Michael Bolton is singing as smoke curls up from the patients face
while the doctor uses an electric current to cauterize tiny blood
vessels. It’s Melissa Manchester when he lifts the forehead and the
sedated woman’s eyes come open- an unnerving sight. Aston correctly
predicts that exposing the skull may be too brutal to watch, which is a
pity, like turning away from Picasso at work. “I’m painting a picture,”
he says. But I’ve got to like what I put on my canvas the first time.
My medium is unforgiving.” Finishing (to Kenny C), Aston lops off a
good two inches of excess skin, staples or sutures the incisions shut,
then gently combs his patient’s blood-soaked hair and encases her head
in a tight mesh sac. She looks like a kielbasa. But Aston says most of
her swelling and bruises will be gone in two weeks: Facial skin is the
fastest-healing part of the body because of its ample blood supply. As
the doctor leaves the OR, he scans the next day’s roster of surgeries.
A celebrity is checking into the hospital under an alias. You will
recognize her immediately.” Aston tells his assistant. “You will give
no sign.” Will the hospital staff, who may not subscribe to Women’s
Wear Daily, know her? “This woman,” he says, “would be recognized in
Russia.”
A chauffeur is waiting curbside in a black Mercedes to take
Aston back to his office, where a woman in sunglasses stands at the
reception desk counting out the fee for her upcoming surgery in hundred
dollar bills. The air is perfumed with fresh-cut lilies, and half a
dozen blonde and red-haired assistants are wearing black and beige-no
nurses’ uniforms here. It’s a fool’s guess whether they’re as young as
they look or have partaken of the boss’ services. Even the clientele
seems preternaturally youthful: Aston believes in face-lifts when
patients are in their 40s, when the skin is in optimal condition. In
consultation, he is courtly, low-key. “I understand you’re thinking
about freshening up a bit” is his typical opener with a new patient,
and he prides himself on saying. “I know what’s bothering you” without
being told.
There are no pictures of a rich and famous clientele around,
and I have to swear on everything holy that for the rest of the day I
spend with him, I am blind, deaf and mute. Aston’s reputation as
face-lifter to the stars is made of equal parts skill and discretion.
“You cannot find a press agent who’s ever had me as a client,” he says.
“I’ve been fortunate to operate on some of the most famous people in
the world, and people spread the word.” But while he travels in the
same social circle as his clients, out in public plastic surgeons are a
bit like shrinks:
Patients don’t want to be recognized.
About the Author
Serving New York, the Upper East Side and Manhattan - NYC, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, Dr. Sherrell J. Aston, utilizes the latest surgical techniques in his practice of Breast Augmentation, Breast Implants and Breast Enhancement surgery!
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