‘Superman six-pack’ and ‘side bum’ top cosmetic surgery requests in Dubai

More women are seeking surgery to emulate hourglass looks favoured by celebrities, while men are seeking 4-D liposuction to sculpt their upper torsos, surgeons say.

Luiz Toledo, consultant plastic surgeon at Medical Arts Clinic in Jumeirah, says demand is soaring. Sarah Dea / The National

DUBAI // Meet plastic surgery’s newest crazes in Dubai: the “side bum” and the “Superman six-pack”.

Sanjay Parashar, chief executive and director of the Cocoona Centre for Aesthetic Transformation, said there has been a surge in women seeking surgery to increase the amount of flesh between the top of the thigh and hip and around the buttocks, to achieve the hourglass look favoured by celebrities such as Beyonce or the Kardashian sisters.

Men are seeking the latest body-sculpting techniques using a 4-D liposuction procedure that claims to shape and sculpt the entire upper torso.

“There is a very high demand for procedures such as gluteal augmentation and enhancement of ‘sidebums’,” Dr Parashar said.

Dr Luiz Toledo, a Dubai surgeon, said he was also seeing a rise in requests for buttock augmentation.

“When I moved to Dubai 10 years ago, I brought my Brazilian buttock technique,” he said. “Now, the technique has been revamped and many surgeons are doing it.”

Dr Parashar said that in addition to prevailing popular procedures, such as breast implants, liposuction and rhinoplasty, there was a rising number of requests for labiaplasty, vaginal rejuvenation, breast fat grafting, thread lifts and, in particular, a soaring demand for male body sculpting from customers looking for physiques like those seen on action heroes.

“I have seen a high number of male patients asking for pectoral implants, bicep implants and calf implants,” Dr Parashar said.

“There are some new procedures that have come to Dubai, such as 4-D liposculpting in which a man can have fat trimmed from arms, chest, tummy and thighs in such a way that the muscle definition is enhanced, and in some cases we remodel the muscle by injecting fat to augment the muscle.”

Dr Toledo said patients often wanted riskier types of surgery, such as dimples or silicone buttock implants, while Vasilica Baltateanu, founder of Vasilica Aesthetics, a plastic surgery consultancy, has received requests that are even more specific.

“I had one patient who actually asked for a nose like Michael Jackson,” she said.

Dubai-based plastic surgeon Dr Matteo Vigo said patients now want a more holistic -approach to enhancing their appearance rather than “knife and stitches”, opting for fat grafting and regenerative medicine using stem cells – a trend that Dr Maurizio Viel and Dr Roberto Viel, of the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery in Dubai, also reported.

“In the cosmetic field, these dormant stem cells are derived from fat and used for facial rejuvenation and to help volumise other areas of the body, including the breast, bottom, penis and face,” they said. “It is a more natural and less invasive approach using the patient’s own stem cells to treat their skin and other indications.”

Dr Vigo said body reshaping was still the main request in the region, where weight-loss -patients sought a solution to their body definition.