It never fails: just as we finish explaining to our out-of-town friends that Miami's not really like that, we catch wind of something like this: a Plastic Surgery Fashion Show.
Last Thursday night, you could smell the silicone on Bay Harbor Islands. As a mitzvah-trained DJ spun techno music, partygoers munched on pigs-in-a-blanket as they studied before-and-after
boob-job photos on the walls. It was the grand opening gala for the new five-story complex for Bal Harbour Plastic Surgery Associates, founded by local fake-boob tycoon Dr. Michael Salzhauer. He's been in business down the street in Bal Harbour for six years, and is the author of "My Beautiful Mommy", his illustrated tome for children watching their mothers undergo plastic surgery. The book includes such not-at-all-shiver-inducing lines as: "We are learning
about butterflies and watching cocoons hatch. Mommy laughed and said she felt
like a cocoon herself with all the bandages."
"Bal Harbour and Bay Harbor Islands have for years been Miami's center
for fashion, beauty, and body image," Dr.Franken, um, Salzhauer gushed,
his unblemished, Spartan-esque face glowing as he finished posing with
a dozen melon-chested former clients. "They call it
'Silicon Alley'!"
At eight o'clock, it was the event's big draw--"the first ever
of its kind!" brags a Dr. Salzhauer publicist, and we believe her. Ten
altered women, unnaturally buoyant busts bursting from skin-tight
dresses, sauntered a makeshift catwalk to the cheers of the gin-tipsy
crowd. One of them had a gravely unhappy Shih Tzu puppy tucked in the
crook of her elbow. "The patients that are modeling today would never
have dreamed of walking a runway before their surgeries!" Dr. Michael
told Riptide triumphantly. There might as well have been price tags
dangling from the
perfectly-contoured rumps and jugs paraded before us.
When Riptide corralled a few of the models after the show, we
learned that they were in fact Dr. Salzhauer's clients--but also models
he hired from Prestige, a North Miami Beach agency.
"You know how when one girl tries a surgeon and loves him?" explained
Ivette Torres, "The word gets around. Not only is Dr. Michael a good
doctor, but his after-patient care is tremendous!"
Okay, but we left feeling vaguely cheated. So these patients
aren't formerly Roseanne-esque housewives, but nipped-and-tucked
professional models? That's about as authentic as a breast
you can dribble.
