The man who really can make you look 20 years younger

Deborah Ross
Why I need a PA
On Thursday
Japanese junk food
Food like Nobu, only cheaper
Clive James
My favourite authorst
August 27 | 2015
The man
who really
can make
you look
20 years
younger
2
1GT
times2
Wanted:
executive
assistant
to empty
dishwasher
Deborah
Ross
O
h, to be rich
and powerful,
like Jermain
Defoe, the
Premier
League
footballer who
plays for some
club or other and who advertised
for an “executive personal
assistant’’ on the SecsintheCity
website, with duties to include
watering the plants, keeping the
fridge stocked and making
restaurant bookings along with
other trifles such as taking care
of his mother, creating global
recognition for the Defoe
brand, increasing his popularity
on social media and producing
iPhone apps in his name.
Defoe is effectively outsourcing
himself, as is the way with the
rich and powerful — J-Lo
employs an “eyebrow assistant’’
and also a “coat carrier’’, or so
I once read — and, the fact is,
I’m attracted to the idea, for
why attend to your own life if you
can make it someone else’s job?
With this in mind, I’ve decided
to advertise for my own executive
Old yes,
but still
not wise
The film 45 Years,
which opens tomorrow,
is about a long-married
couple (Charlotte
Rampling and Tom
Courtenay) who are
thrown into existential
crisis when he receives
a letter about his
first girlfriend, who
died in an accident
50 years ago.
Thursday August 27 2015 | the times
ALAN THORNTON / GETTY IMAGES
To beat ageing
Forget the old-style ‘skin stretch’ at 50.
Gerald Imber, surgeon to the New York
elite, says small procedures, done often,
are the secret. By Barbara McMahon
personal assistant, who would
be required to do the following
for Deborah Ross (otherwise
known as DeRo, for global
branding purposes):
0 Serve her watermelon with all
the seeds removed, possibly while
she is on some kind of throne.
0 Call her mother regularly —
every morning, ideally. (You will
not be impeded by her father
who, in the rare instances he
answers the phone, will almost
immediately say, in a panicstricken manner: “I’ll pass you
over to your mother.’’)
0 Take her fat bits (you’ll find her
thighs a particularly rich source)
and claim them for yourself.
0 Book theatre and cinema
tickets and generally keep her
amused, even if it means having
to trip while running for the bus,
which always makes her laugh.
(She’s not proud of this, btw; it’s
just what happens whenever
someone trips running for the bus.)
0 Aid her work life by preventing
her from spending all morning
getting nothing done, then all
afternoon asking herself how that
was possible, then all evening
curled up in a ball of self-loathing.
(Should she spend all evening
curled up in a ball of self-loathing,
she will hold you responsible.)
0 Do something, anything, about
the garden: it’s crazy out there.
0 Read the book of the moment,
Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life,
so she doesn’t have to continue —
she’s up to page 100, doesn’t
believe a word of it — then think
of six smart things she can say, all
of which must give the impression
she made it to the end. (If you can
read with one hand, she suggests
you might hoover with the other
The news quietly
discombobulates them
both, but what struck
me is how it felt truthful
and how rarely older
people are portrayed
truthfully on screen.
Just because you are,
say, in your seventies,
or eighties, or nineties
— the couple in the
film are in their
seventies, I’d say — it
doesn’t mean you’ve
stopped thinking about
the world around you
or your place in it. It
doesn’t mean you’ve
stopped having hopes
and dreams. How often
while feather dusters, inserted in
each ear, could be getting on with
the picture rails.)
0 Boost her Twitter popularity,
which over the years has been
hampered because she isn’t at all
popular. Ideally, she would like
you to sock it to her peers by
having her timeline look like this:
@deborahross: “Here is my Times
column today.’’ @Salmanrushdie:
“Love it!’’ @JKRowling: “You
nailed it as usual!’’ @WoodyAllen:
“Pissed myself laughing.’’ @God:
“Best thing I’ve read in ages.’’
@martinamis: “Makes me wonder
why I bother.’’ @deborahross:
“Thank you. So many
compliments can’t reply to all
personally! *bashful face*”.
0 Perform all the household tasks
she loathes, to include sock
pairing, unstacking dishwasher,
chasing coffee grounds along the
kitchen worktop with a sponge
and scrubbing the blackened
roasting pan that has been
“soaking’’ by the sink for about
four years now, and has come to
represent the power struggle
within the house, as to who does
what, and who says they are
going to do what, then doesn’t.
0 Develop the “DeRo’’ iPhone
app to provide live reports,
analysis and up-to-the minute
news on her exciting life as
half-empty husk and half-spoilt
child now that she doesn’t have to
do a single thing for herself and
will shortly even forget how to
wipe her own bum.
If you are interested in this
position, you can apply at
SecsBehindTheRecyclingBins.
You will know you have been
appointed when you get a letter
from yourself, saying this is so.
is this ever shown?
Generally, older
people are caricatured
as been there, done
that, wise now, got it
sorted. This contradicts
my own experience in
that the older I get the
more panicky and less
confident I feel — my
Twitter unpopularity
has not helped me in
this regard — and as
to wisdom, I can’t think
of anything of value
I might impart.
If someone asked
me about the most
important thing I’d
learnt in life, I think
I’d honestly have to
come back with: Muji
do the best duvet covers
because they are zipped
and therefore you don’t
have to suffer those
poppers that refuse to
pop or those buttons
that unbutton in the
middle of the night.
This is worth knowing.
And I intend to pass it
on to my grandchildren.
But that’s it.
So I’d recommend
45 Years, since it says
what may in fact be the
case: older people don’t
cease being complex,
and can be a mess too.
N
ot long ago, the
general approach to
cosmetic surgery
was as follows.
Women didn’t feel
they could do
anything about
ageing until things
got really bad. Then one terrible day
they looked in the mirror and saw the
tired faces of their mothers looking
straight back. That was enough to
send them stampeding towards the
scalpel, demanding everything the
surgical fountain of youth could offer.
Result? More often than not, disaster.
With too much surgical work too late,
women ended up with overstretched
and unnatural-looking faces that
screamed: “I’ve had work done.”
Today’s women are more
knowledgeable about cosmetic surgery
and make wiser choices. They opt
for unobtrusive refresher procedures,
regular tiny fixes and gentle
surgeries that hold back the years
in sophisticated, subtle ways.
As 57-year-old Sharon Stone, posing
nude and looking sensational in
Harper’s Bazaar, said recently: “It’s so
common now for people to have fillers,
it’s almost like a beauty treatment.”
The actress and mother of three
adopted sons, and a spokeswoman for
the filler brand Restylane, added: “It’s
a far better alternative than having
your face cut apart and ending up
looking like you got sucked into a
wind tunnel.”
Some of this change in attitudes
is down to the efforts of Dr Gerald
Imber, a pioneer in the field of subtle
facelifts and the go-to person in
Manhattan for women of a certain
age who want to remain . . . looking
a certain age. The king of the tweak,
master blaster of wrinkles and skilful
upholsterer of sagging jawlines has
a philosophy of self-help and
less invasive surgical procedures
performed throughout the thirties,
forties and fifties that has helped
thousands of women (and men)
to age more gracefully.
“Most women don’t want to sit
around and wait for ageing to become
pronounced enough to need the
old-fashioned, too-tight facelift
that has given plastic surgery
a bad name,’’ he says.
We are in his Youth Corridor clinic,
on the Upper East Side of Manhattan,
where most New York cosmetic
surgeons work. Imber, who is in
surgical scrubs, has carried out two
facelifts this morning, each lasting
about two hours, and the
reconstruction of a nose lost through
cancer. “Oh yes, we’ve got victims all
over the place,” he jokes, as we pass
the door to the operating suite.
Recognised as being among the top
1 per cent of cosmetic surgeons in the
United States, the 74-year-old says
most of his clients are women in their
fifties. “I like to describe the people
I take care of as being more womenwho-work than women-who-lunch,”
he says. “I have lawyers, psychologists,
professors, writers, politicians and
people in film and the theatre.
They’re some of the most powerful
women in the country and what
they want is to look as vital on the
outside as they feel on the inside.”
Name names, I say. “Absolutely
not,” says Imber. “When women
come to me they are admitting there’s
something they don’t like about their
appearance. Their psychological
defences are down and my job
is to help them, not to trade
on their names.”
He says he would not tell his
globetrotting wife Cathryn Collins,
who owns the luxury cashmere label
I Pezzi Dipinti, if her best friend came
to see him. “It’s a trust that I take
very seriously.” All he will say is that
he has worked on people in the last
six administrations in Washington,
has high-level clients in the media
and has treated Oscar and
Tony-award winners.
Trained as a general surgeon before
moving into cosmetic surgery, Imber
Don’t wait until
you’re unhappy
with what you
see in the mirror
has shaken up the establishment
several times. He was the first doctor
in Manhattan to build an operating
theatre on his premises. Then he
began to question the one-size-fits-all
facelift. “I thought we were doing
too much surgery. Everybody got the
same operation, everybody got their
skin pulled. You did the same for a 54year-old as you did for a 74-year-old
and it didn’t make sense to me.”
At the time, he says, there was an
attitude in his profession that the early
changes in appearance brought about
by ageing were not worth dealing with.
“I thought that the earlier we became
involved, the better. We had to help
people to avoid the loosening and
wrinkling that becomes severe enough
to bring them to surgery because some
of those things can never be reversed
— or not fully reversed — and still
look natural,” he explains.
He developed the limited-incision
facelift, also known as the short-scar
facelift, a less invasive procedure
that has become the gold standard
among plastic surgeons. He also
popularised microsuction, a refined
liposuction that removes jowls
and tightens the jawline.
So what is the peculiar-sounding
“youth corridor”? “The youth corridor
is that time in life when you radiate
beauty, health, energy and vitality,
the times | Thursday August 27 2015
3
1GT
you have to start early
GETTY IMAGES
when you look and feel your best,”
he says. “I believe every woman
can remain agelessly in that youth
corridor for decades with
preventive measures.”
Imber defines this as a programme
of prevention, maintenance and
correction, claiming that it can help
women to stay looking almost exactly
the same from 35 to 60. “Not exactly
the same but pretty darn close,” he
clarifies. “You can walk into a room
and see a woman and she is dazzling
— she’s not 35 and she doesn’t look
35 — but she’s the greatest-looking
55-year-old she can be. Yes, she has
signs that she’s been around the block,
but she looks great — her skin fits,
she’s got a great haircut and she
takes care of her body. That’s the
way it should be.”
In his book The Youth Corridor,
Imber outlines a checklist of changes
women will see on their faces as
they age and what they should do
about them. Smile lines and fine
wrinkles around the eyes, irregular
pigmentation, sunspots and dark
circles under the eyes can be taken
care of with a good skincare routine,
which may need to be jump-started
by an aesthetician with treatments
such as antioxidants, AHA peels
and tretinoin, which helps acne
and other skin problems.
Deeper smile lines, frown lines on
the forehead, lines at the corners of
the mouth and wrinkled lower eyelids
can be controlled with Botox, Dysport,
fillers and peels.
The third group of changes
requires various levels of surgical
intervention, he claims. It includes
hooding of the eyelids, bags or
puffiness under the eyes, deep lines
around the mouth, double chin, jowls,
loss of cheekbone prominence and
platysma (vertical bands at the
front of the neck). According to
Imber, these can be corrected in
procedures now considered routine
among cosmetic surgeons.
After 35 years in the business,
carrying out about 20,000 surgeries,
Imber will launch his first skincare
range in September at Harrods. He
developed creams for healing and
maintenance a few years ago and sold
them to patients. “Someone from
Harrods got hold of some and loved it
and asked where she could get more,
and when I said it wasn’t for general
sale, it all took off from there,” he says.
There are eight products in the
range but the three main ones — the
Ultimate Antioxidant C Boost Serum,
which claims to fends off damage, the
RetinUltimate Transforming Gel,
which allegedly rejuvenates the skin
and the Ultimate Nourishing Creme
Right: Sharon
Stone, who says
fillers are now
like a beauty
treatment
moisturiser — bought together retail
for an eye-watering £850.
Does he think the prices are
extremely expensive? “If you can’t
afford the whole range, buy the hero
product,” he advises, referring to the
Ultimate Antioxidant C Boost Serum,
which costs £200 and lasts six to ten
weeks. He talks enthusiastically about
the antioxidants vitamins C and E that
are combined with melatonin and
vitamin B3 in this supercharged
liquid. “Everyone sees a difference
in their skin within ten days. I think
a lot of women would pay £200
for that,” he says.
There used to be a yawning gap
between British and American women
and their attitudes to cosmetic surgery.
American women embraced it too
enthusiastically, he says, while British
women were conservative. Now they
are closer. “British women are still not
fully aware of the value of treatments
such as fat transfer and microsuction
and tend to come a little later to the
idea of a facelift because they wrongly
think the only facelift is a big ol’
facelift,” he says. “Everybody wants to
look natural. The key thing is not to
wait until you’re unhappy with what
you see in the mirror. Even if you
aren’t convinced of the wisdom of
doing small procedures earlier, there’s
absolutely no excuse for not following
a self-help routine.”
I am not going to waste a free
consultation with one of America’s top
cosmetic surgeons so I ask Imber to
cast a professional eye over my
56-year-old face. I have tried laser
therapy once, and loved it, but have
had no other work done. He tells me I
could have a light touch of Botox
around my eyes, a fat transfer to fill
out the lines around my mouth and
microsuction to address “laxity” in my
lower neck. The cost would be about
$8,000 (£5,000). Though I don’t need
it — yet — a short-scar facelift
would be about $20,000
(£12,000).
It is a lot. Not something to
rush into, Imber agrees: “If
women follow a good skincare
routine and make little changes
at the right times, they might
keep on looking great and
never need a facelift.”
He says he has had
“zillions” of British
clients over the years.
“Just the other day, a
woman came over from
the UK for a consultation
and said she had always
been regarded as the
prettiest banker in the
City, but age was
catching up with her
and she wanted to
know what she could
do to avoid having
a facelift.” She took
fillers and will come
back for a surgical procedure.
Many of his British clients
are in fashion or the media,
Imber adds: “When I go to
Claridge’s, I invariably meet
women I know, and they look
fabulous, and that is very
gratifying.” Of course,
he never acknowledges
just how he knows them.
times2
The lowdown
The one-armed
dress
So what did you think of Benedict
Cumberbatch’s performance as
Haml . . .
Stop! You’re missing the story here.
I don’t think I am, but go on.
The story is his wife and the mother
of his baby, Sophie Hunter.
Fantastic! She’s an intelligent and
beautiful woman with a degree in
modern languages from Oxford and a
successful career as a theatre director.
I’m thrilled that she’s the story.
Oh dear. I’m afraid you’re missing
the point again.
I am?
Yes. It’s the dress she wore to the
opening of said production of
Hamlet.
Oh, god. “Accomplished woman
fulfils her destiny by acting as arm
candy while wearing a frock’’? Has
it come to this?
Apparently so.
Tell me more about the dress. I
believe it’s orange, with one sleeve?
Why do you think that? It is clearly,
as any fashion editor will tell you, a
directional, coral Osman Resort
2016. But yes, we can at least agree
that it’s definitely got one sleeve.
Why?
Why not? You can have oneshouldered dresses, so why not onesleeved?
Because we’ve got two arms. For
the same reason, you don’t get
trousers with one leg.
You have a point.
Surely the point is not how many
sleeves there were, but what Hunter
looked like in it?
Classy, as always, not least because
she paired it with some excellent,
punky studded Valentino stilettos.
Any accessories?
I’m so glad you asked that. Yes. She
accessorised her dress with Benedict
Cumberbatch.
Hilary Rose