Park said December would normally have been his peak season because high school seniors finish South Korea’s grueling university entrance exams and prepare for winter graduation. He said the exhausted students — and their equally stressed mothers — often celebrated by getting cosmetic surgery.
Not last December. Though he would not disclose specific numbers, Park said his patient load was down by half, leading him to lay off three of his seven nurses and office workers.
Sung Myung-soon can sympathize.
Like millions of South Koreans who recently emerged into the middle class, Sung, a 54-year-old homemaker, enjoyed a lifestyle of shopping at malls and lounging by her health club’s pool, and — until a few months ago — regularly visiting the plastic surgeon, where she maintained her youthful appearance.
But the financial crisis in the fall has brought fears that South Korea’s good times may be over, or at least on indefinite suspension, and Sung has cut back by making fewer visits to her plastic surgeon and bargaining hard for discounts when she does visit. She refuses to give up her plastic surgery altogether.
“Even at times like these, women still want their plastic surgery,” said Sung, who recently rounded her eyes and smoothed wrinkles on her forehead.
Typical of South Korea’s more frugal patients, she chose less expensive procedures, like Botox injections to remove wrinkles, instead of her usual surgery. She also said she would reduce her number of visits to once a year, from twice.
Still, surgeons say the continued desire of women like Sung to look beautiful will keep the industry alive, although it may shrink greatly.
But Park and other plastic surgeons said the country’s decline has brought one silver lining: South Korea’s currency has fallen so far that procedures here are now cheap when calculated in dollars and other currencies. This has led to growing numbers of Japanese, Chinese and Korean Americans coming to Seoul for relatively inexpensive cosmetic procedures.
Some clinics said 20 percent to 30 percent of patients are now foreigners, up from 10 percent last year. A few larger clinics are even taking the opportunity of a downturn at home to open branches in China, the country seen as the industry’s next big growth market.
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