Content area
Full text
Suzanne Noël: Cosmetic Surgery, Feminism and Beauty in Early Twentieth-Century France By Paula J. Martin (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014) (157 pages; $149.95 cloth)
Paula J. Martin's slim volume introduces readers to a pioneer of cosmetic surgery, Suzanne Noël (1878-1954), placing her convincingly in both medical and feminist history. Martin argues that Noël's gender and feminism combined to make her "one of the most notable and sought after cosmetic surgeons of her time" (p. 1). Importantly, during the interwar years, Noël helped develop a beauty culture that emphasized female empowerment and economic independence through physical transformation.
Martin first fleshes out Noël's personal life with a strong focus on her two husbands, both of whom were also surgeons focusing on dermatology. It was her first husband, Henry Pertat, who encouraged Suzanne to take the unusual step of attending medical school as an upper-class wife and mother. Despite excelling in her course work and training alongside renowned Parisian doctors, Noël originally expected to work under her husband's medical licenses, aiding in the development of their medical practices. But this subservience to her husband led to dependence and caused Noël to take on a more radical...