Thursday, December 09, 2010

The facelift that made me fall in love with life again

Annabel Giles was one of Britain's top models, but nearing 50, illness and heartbreak had left her looking tired and old...

The wonderful Joan Collins famously once said: ‘The problem with beauty is that it’s like being born rich, and getting poorer.’

One morning in the summer of 2007, I looked at myself in the mirror and suddenly knew with searing clarity what she meant.

I hated what I saw staring back at me. In my youth, I had been one of the most celebrated models of my generation — a supermodel before the term had been invented. To take up Joan’s analogy, I hadn’t just been born rich; I’d been born a millionaire.

Now here I was, peering at my 48-year-old self in the mirror, wondering where my lovely face had gone.

It seemed as if it was slowly sliding off my head. I looked cross, tired and worried, even when I was feeling chipper. Put simply, my inside wasn’t matching my outside — a feeling most women no longer in the first flush of youth will recognise only too well.

I realised in that moment that I didn’t want to stand idly by as my looks slipped away. I wanted to look as good as I could, no matter what my age.

So there was only one thing for it — to go under the surgeon’s knife.

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