Russia: The Face Race

First came the hemline revolution, then the permanent wave. Last week the Kremlin authorized yet another step in the transformation of the Soviet woman from proletarian heroine to bourgeois feline. Out of an old beauty salon on Moscow’s Gorky Street it created the Institute of Cosmetology, which, when it opens next year, will have a staff of 300 specialists. Purpose of the institute, according to Tass: “The perfection of the human face and body.”

Russian women have long been anxious to get into the face race. The Gorky Street establishment, which for years had been getting quiet advice from Elizabeth Arden and the Paris Academy of Beauty, was already dispensing complexion cures (for 1 ruble, or $1.11) and facials (2 rubles) to as many as 1,500 customers a day. Apparently, their problems were serious. “In the opinion of the beauticians,” reported Tass, “the most difficult thing is to convince the patients that the tragic defects in their appearance do not demand medical attention.” Just in case they do, however, the institute’s plastic surgery department will offer a complete line of nose bobs at a flat rate of 50 rubles per capita.