Ken Bell, Age 67, 12 Years out from Surgery, Dr Bryan Mendelson - Melbourne, AU

Ken Bell
Review

In my imaginings I’ve had to ask myself the question, am I prepared to put myself out there, up against Daniel Craig, Beckham and others to front up to someone like Posh or Jolie? For me the answer is yes.

Now I know you’ll say to yourself I’m happy with my maturing and maybe my sagging face, and for that matter, my sagging body, but if you were setting out in life now, would that be your choice? Bryan Mendelson in his recently published book, “In Your Face,” quotes one of his patients which to my mind poses an answer:

“Before my (face) surgery I wondered what was it that lay dormant in me that I wanted to rediscover. And to my surprise, it was my sensuality that had been hung up on a hanger for so many years. I decided I needed to embrace elegance more, embrace rather than fear or be ashamed by a little vanity.”

I too would like to suffer a little vanity now and admit it, even say it out loud, because my face, the way I look and carry myself are non-negotiable to me. I am held in some suspicion by those who know me for my emphasis on my looks but I was born in a lower socio-economic demographic and grew up in the 50’s dark-ages where I formed a view that I was shamefully one who missed out on most everything, especially looks. Then as time passed I somehow became handsome only to lose it the moment it arrived.

That’s when I met Bryan Mendelson. Heavily bankrupted, divorced again, back in the dark-ages, feeling anything but handsome I checked myself in and began a journey that still carries me today, my face surgery done for me by Bryan lasting well into a decade.

Now face surgery as we know is not for everyone, just as not all of us think that Rugby is the game played in Heaven. But for those who have had face surgery there is a transformation that takes place. For many it’s greater confidence, greater social ease, wellbeing, freshness, a greater engagement in life and business and perhaps more noticed, more smiled at that carries us on our way. For me though it was something more than that. My face had fallen below an acceptable aesthetic threshold and which worried me every day. I had lost my elegance.

What Bryan did for me over two sets of corrective face surgery was to cut out my Rupert Murdoch chooks neck by stitching up the ligaments (as opposed to the dreaded skin tightening) under my chin and upper neck so that my chin was tight against my jaw line. I am very conscious of jaw lines and I still to this day check out the lines of those who wear them, many unaware of the gift they have. Secondly, he did my eyes and I have to say, no one in my opinion does eyes like Bryan. Lastly, and his master stroke was “coral” (Hydroxyapatite) welded to my cheek bones in a skilful procedure with just 1mm added to the cheek bone which lifts the entire middle face creating a high, even theatrical cheek bone and lifting the face away from sagging and creasing. This has taken me forward in life and whole future by providing extras good years by first turning back the clock and then slowing the rate of future aging. As a result, simply put, I was finally happy with my face, and if I own up to it, excited at the prospect of where I was headed in my life and business.

Then came Paris. As an aside, what I need to say is that for as long as I can remember when I walk I’m “on the Runway” and Paris was the scene of me taking that for a spin. All I did was what I’ve always done and that was to walk: four times asked if I was Giorgio Armani himself (when I look nothing like him), greeted as though I was a movie star seemingly wherever I went, people came up to me repeatedly asking what I did and at one stage a big Italian driving on the wrong side of the road, kerb-called me along the sidewalk until his curiosity overcame him and in his baritone voice shouted; ”What you is?” In hindsight what I think they were saying was, “You’re probably famous, it’s just that we can’t quite put our finger on who you are.”

I spoke to Bryan some time later about what had happened to me in Paris and he, knowing my love of design and fashion, remarked: “But Ken, it is the fashion capital of the world.” However what belies the fact is that, other than admittedly an expensive pair of boots, I wore an ordinary pair of Strauss jeans, an $8.95 black Bonds Tee and my old TV scarf. It was my face, there was something about my face after the surgery.

There’s a tendency to think that you will never be the same after having undergone good corrective facial surgery. It’s not true. You become the person you always were.
I have found it difficult to live my own life, to become who I am, but somehow in the journey I have, by the grace of God, quite astonishingly done exactly that.

If you’ve managed to read this far then I greatly applaud you and if I still hold your attention may I quite candidly say this. If you want to look and feel the way others and I have spoken of and you’re not feeling good about yourself, the way you look and the manner in which you maybe carry yourself, if life is a bit fleeting and no matter how many times you dye your hair you just can’t scrub up, then save your dollars, get a second job, do whatever you can and get on a cheap flight to see Bryan. He’s warm and inviting, a generous man, a gentleman, a scholar and one of the world’s great face Surgeons. Don’t go to Thailand and come back looking like my fruiterer down the road; go to the top.