The film Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has sparked a new wave of interest in Mattel’s iconic doll. But while Barbie looks natural and cheerful in the film, for some people this image has become a literal obsession.
For example, 33-year-old Australian Tara McConaughey has been transforming herself from head to toe for over a decade, striving for the ideal she sees in the Barbie mirror. Having spent over $200,000 on plastic surgery, she admits that she has no intention of stopping — ‘there is no limit to perfection.’
At 170 cm tall and weighing about 45 kg, Tara calls herself a ‘limited edition doll.’ Her body has undergone dozens of surgical procedures:
— five breast augmentations,
— six nose jobs,
— cheek and buttock implants,
— eyes dyed emerald green,
— endless Botox and filler injections.
Her measurements are 37-17-29, which is even closer to the proportions of the legendary Barbie than most models.
‘After the first operation, I felt euphoric,’ says Tara. ‘It became my way of life. I think about plastic surgery morning, noon and night. If you can change your body, why not make it perfect?’
Her obsession began at the age of 20, when her father gave her her first ‘makeover’ — breast and lip augmentation — as a birthday present. Since then, the girl has known no bounds. She admits that doctors often refuse to perform new operations on her, but that doesn’t stop her:
‘If one surgeon says “no”, I’ll go to another. There are many of them, and someone is bound to agree.’
Despite warnings from specialists about her ‘critically low weight’ and health risks, Tara is always looking for new ways to change herself. She has already appeared on a reality show about plastic surgery, where she admitted:
‘I just love attention. Big breasts are my way of being noticed. It’s my wow factor.’
But even after numerous alterations, she remains dissatisfied with the result. After temporarily reducing her breasts due to back problems, Tara decided to get them back — and even bigger.
This year, she is travelling to Turkey to increase her breast size from 1050 to 1500 cubic centimetres. ‘Less is not for me,’ she says. ‘The bigger, the better.’
She pays for the operations thanks to online platforms where she shares exclusive content with her fans.
Today, McConaughey is called a symbol of the extremes of the era — when perfection is measured not by harmony, but by the number of stitches and implants.
