The death of a former Miss Argentina after a routine buttock implants operation has reignited a long-running debate on the prevalence of cosmetic surgery in the South American country.Solange Magnano (above), who was crowned Miss Argentina in 1994, was rushed to hospital last week shortly after the gluteoplasty, which she hoped would give her firmer buttocks. She died on Sunday of a pulmonary embolism after three days in intensive care.
Robert Piazza, a fashion designer and friend of Magnano, said the 38-year-old model, who leaves behind a husband and twin daughters, had been obsessing over her appearance as her modelling career drew to an end.
"Solange was a girl who had everything," he said. "She lived the life of a goddess, she was the envy of everybody. Now she is dead because she wanted a slightly firmer behind. She died because of her obsession with beauty."
Piazza called for an investigation into the clinic responsible for the operation, saying Solange had "made the mistake" of trusting TV and magazine adverts that claim they can make cellulite disappear with an injection. He bemoaned a society where narcissism is at its peak and where beauty and youth are overvalued: "They do not understand that having class is not synonymous with beauty," he said.
Piazza's comments are a clue to Argentina's obsession with cosmetic surgery. Around 50,000 cosmetic operations were carried out in the country last year, an increase of more than 60 per cent in five years.
Many of these supposedly routine operations are carried out on foreigners, who have been going to Argentina since the collapse of the peso in 2002 made surgery there relatively cheap. Solange's case is only the highest profile of a string of widely-publicised incidents.
In August this year, a 43-year-old Chilean woman died in the Argentine province of Mendoza, where she had gone to have three cosmetic operations. And a councillor for the province of Chaco has been in a coma since July 2008 after undergoing liposuction.
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