Pearls from the International Master Course on Ageing Skin, Paris, January 2001

In a context marked by confusion and the loss of reference points, withdrawal into oneself, the ‘me/us’ of the community or the tribe, constitutes both a refuge and a rebuff. Shared tastes and emotions become determinant. The climate is changing: cultural values coded as ‘feminine’ are becoming widespread: sensitivity, emotion, aesthetics. This is a complex situation, a  uctuating identity. Identity today resides in a multiple register with the juxtaposition of different, opposed and ambivalent values and attitudes. People are deŽ ned simultaneously by ethics and hedonism, by tradition and by technology. We cope, we manage, we surf. Appearance, looks, attractiveness are invested with a new dimension. They no longer reside on the surface, at the level of social normality, but truly inside, the re ection of a serene balance between the internal and external. In parallel, despite a wide-ranging debate, one problem remains: we accept age only while it still embodies signs of youth. ‘To manage’ our appearance and ‘to optimise’ our beauty become complex and sometimes paradoxical strategies. Although attitudes and behaviours have changed, some factors can be seen to have remained constant. The body is perceived as a subject: we listen, we investigate, we invest, in short we ‘psychologise’. Modern philosophers and anthropologists (Michel Serres in France, Diane Ackerman in the USA) have also contributed to restoring to the sensory sphere a major role in the knowledge and understanding of the world and of oneself. Preoccupation with beauty is legitimized. It is based on an individualistic and wilful ideology: to be oneself, which corresponds to the best image of oneself. And this preoccupation becomes all the more consistent when it involves everything: nutrition, exercise, psychology, art. This constitutes both an opportunity, an all-pervasive consciousness, and a risk area: who does what? who is competent in this subject? In parallel, increasing self-analysis puts the accent on prevention, the global vision. It is the Ž eld of ‘energy’ therapies (homoeopathy, acupuncture, etc.) aiming to support this ‘holistic’ vision of the person. Finally, public cultural opinion is formed. Women’s magazines and the general press devote vast tracts to beauty. For the doctor specialising in beauty, all this creates a new conŽ guration of his status and his role. It is a challenge. He has to take account of the mental attitudes that are developing, with the globalisation of perceptions and expectations. He must act more preventatively, have a broader, more educational, more interactive purpose. It is an opportunity. He is one operator among many, but because of his status as a doctor he must strive to achieve a higher position with ‘intelligence’ of beauty. As Michel Serres said in ‘The Five Senses’: ‘Nothing goes as deep as adornment, nothing goes as far as the skin, the ornament and dimensions of the world. Cosmic and cosmetic, appearance and inner quality come from the same source.’