Jocelyn Wildenstein, the Swiss socialite who became famous later in life for extreme cosmetic surgery that gave her a catlike appearance, died Wednesday. She was 79 or 84 years old, depending on the source, and suffered a pulmonary embolism.
"Her most enduring project," writes Scottie Andrew for CNN, "was her face."
Wildenstein underwent extensive cosmetic surgery in her lifetime, starting about a year into her marriage to Alec, though she long denied it. The two first sought "his-and-hers eye-lifts," as described pithily in a 1998 Vanity Fair feature, but Wildenstein went further. Throughout most of her adult life, the outer corners of Wildenstein's eyes slanted up towards her temples, resembling the felines she so admired; her skin was pulled so taut and her cheeks sat so high on her face that it was free of wrinkles well into her 70s. … Her otherworldly features, which tabloids once snarked over, were celebrated by stylish outlets like Paper and Interview, for which she posed for grand photoshoots. That she maintained her gaudy glamor (and continued unwillingness to cop to plastic surgery) amid her bankruptcy made her a campy icon of sorts, one even imitated in the front row at haute couture fashion week.
Wildenstein's life "remains a mystery or myth," Andrew writes—she was a billionaire after her divorce and apparently very little beyond that has been established to a significant degree of reliability.
Previously:
• Meet 'Dr. Kitty,' the teenager who performed unlicensed cosmetic surgery from her basement
• Staring at our own faces on Zoom has created a bumper year for cosmetic surgeons
• At least 3 women who got 'vampire facials' in New Mexico were infected with H.I.V.