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But plastic surgery is a different story. Even Manhattan’s most glamorous are giving up on plastic surgery because of the economic slump.

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery in a report at an annual academic forum in Chicago on Sunday said in a survey among members, some 62 percent said the number of beauty operations decreased in the first half of this year. Some 62 percent of doctors said breast augmentations were down, and 64 percent said the same was true of lip augmentation. Some 49 saw eyelid surgery decrease and 44 percent reported fewer nose jobs.

This was especially noticeable in the eastern part of the U.S., less so on the West Coast, because the financial firms of Wall Street were at the center of the storm. Some 73 percent said cheaper procedures like wrinkle-reducing Botox injections surged instead.

APAS president Richard D’Amico said an obvious trend saw consumers shift from expensive surgery toward inexpensive procedures. How long before Seoul’s myriad plastic surgery clinics also face the crunch?

(englishnews@chosun.com )