Surgeon sculpts winning woman

Feng Qian holds her trophy. Picture / Reuters

BEIJING - China has chosen its first Miss Artificial Beauty, giving the crown to a 22-year-old from the northeastern city of Jilin who couldn't have done it without the help of her plastic surgeon.

Twenty contestants aged 17 to 62 competed in the final round of the "manmade beauty" pageant at a Beijing opera house, all having had surgery to improve their appearance.

When the result was announced, it was a buoyant Feng Qian who had doctors to thank for four procedures that added a fold to her eyelids, liposuctioned fat from her belly, reshaped her cheeks and injected botox to alter facial muscles.

Feng, in a flowing gold evening gown and a bright smile on her resculpted face, said she hoped the event would remove the stigma associated with plastic surgery.

"I hope this pageant will give a positive sign to the public," she said, adding that the secret of her victory was confidence.

"I want to feel the operation myself so that I will have confidence when I become a plastic surgeon," Feng said.

The winner receives gifts worth $8500, such as club membership and jewellery, plus a free fact-finding trip to cosmetic surgery salons in Japan.

Like many women in China who are increasingly influenced by Western standards of beauty, contestants have typically had surgery for bigger busts and eyes, more defined noses and slimmer bodies.

Sponsors of the contestants - from private beauty clinics to cosmetic surgery hospitals - are vying for business in a booming industry.

Rising incomes have made extreme makeovers fashionable, and many women are going under the knife in search of movie-star looks - raising concern about the nation's rapidly growing but unregulated plastic surgery business.

China, which used to frown upon beauty and fashion as frivolous and decadent, is now the world's eighth-largest and Asia's second-biggest cosmetics market. State media says there are 11.2 million practitioners in 1.5 million beauty salons in China raking in $28 billion yearly.

Organisers dreamed up the pageant after a contestant in a regular beauty contest in May was disqualified after it was discovered she had spent $18,500 on improving her looks.

- REUTERS