There are two surefire topics at any boozy girls’ lunch that will have everyone leaning in with hushed fascination: who’s getting divorced… and who’s had plastic surgery.
Whether they’re turning heads in a bikini at Bondi Beach or arriving at Vue de monde in a perilously plunging evening gown, the hottest socialites and high-society housewives clearly spare no expense to look their best.
Because, despite what they might say on Instagram, yoga and açaí bowls will only get you so far.
But Australia’s beautiful people don’t just throw their cash at any old plastic surgeon down the street – they go to the best of the best in their pursuit of perfection.
There’s an old saying that ‘good work ain’t cheap and cheap work ain’t good’. This certainly applies to surgery, where a rushed overseas job can result in a tacky look, whereas high-quality work can transform you into a living, breathing artwork.
Right now, the name on everyone’s lips is the so-called ‘King of Boobs’ Dr Kourosh Tavakoli – a man who is undoubtedly a master of his art, but wisely insists his own wife is too perfect for his scalpel. However, our society snitches reveal he’s not the only sought-after surgeon in Sydney and Melbourne.
Dr Kourosh Tavakoli (pictured) is the most sought-after breast surgeon in the country
Without further ado, and in no particular order, here are the undisputed rock stars of the Australian plastic surgery scene.
Dr Kourosh Tavakoli
Dr Tavakoli, the most in-demand breast surgeon in the country, has earned his King of Boobs moniker for good reason. His clinic in ritzy Double Bay is the destination of choice for the rich and famous wanting a shapely makeover.
Considered to be the go-to guy for breast augmentation by the eastern suburbs ‘in’ crowd, Dr Tavakoli has been in the game for 21 years and is considered one of Australia’s best.
Dr Tavakoli boasts a Master of Surgery from the University of New South Wales and has performed more than 10,000 breast procedures.
The surgeon-to-the-stars tells us he got his start in Double Bay working under a mentor who recognised his artistry early on. Then he set up his own practice.
‘[My mentor] taught me a few things about running a practice and obviously cosmetic surgery. Then I went on my own. I’ve been on my own for 18 years,’ Dr Tavakoli says.
Starting out with two practices, with one ‘out west in The Hills District’, Dr Tavakoli eventually moved his business permanently to his eastern clinic.
Dr Tavakoli is know for some of the best boob jobs in Australia, with socialite Dina Broadhurst (pictured) rumoured to be one of his clients
Self-proclaimed ‘nude artist’ Dina Broadhurst looks decades younger than her 48 years
As for his cheeky nickname, the doctor says it makes him feel the ‘pressure’, but he is also ‘honoured’ to be a respected professional in his field.
‘It’s a big title. My patients gave the title to me years ago and it stuck,’ he tells me, chuckling when asked about the name.
‘You feel pressured but you also feel honoured that people think of you as a leader in an industry which is quite competitive.
‘Australians have a love affair for breast surgery in particular. So, if you’re at the forefront of that field and people respect you then it’s a big accolade. I’m very proud of it. I don’t know how it came about, but I’m happy to go with it.’
Dr Tavakoli is also known to work on complex cases such as breast revision and tuberous breast deformities.
But most of all, he is famous for crafting some of the best boob jobs in the country, with big names like Dina Broadhurst rumoured to be the beneficiaries of his work.
The self-proclaimed ‘nude artist’ has made an impressive living selling artistic images of her stunning figure, all the while looking decades younger than her 48 years.
While Dina has never publicly revealed her breast augmentation, it’s a oft-repeated rumour that she has Dr Tavakoli to thank for her amazing figure.
Sheeva is the queen bee of plastic surgeon WAGs in Australia and has been with Dr Tavakoli for 25 years
With his star-studded client list in mind, I asked Dr Tavakoli what makes him the favourite among rich and famous women looking for a ‘high-profile’ breast makeover. It turns out he doesn’t really advertise, and lets his work speak for itself.
‘Honestly, it’s word of mouth. It’s the work you do. It’s nothing else. People – be it socialites or non-socialites – want the best outcome,’ he explains.
‘I’ve given up all my career to learning and becoming very good at breast surgery. I think the aftercare… and providing a good outcome is what they’re after.
‘I’m hoping that’s why they come to me. I hope I’m a good surgeon and a good doctor to look after them.’
The plastic surgeon travels in the same lofty social circles as his clients, and boasts a stunningly beautiful wife, Sheeva.
Known as the ‘Persian Princess’, Sheeva is regarded as the ‘queen bee’ of plastic surgeon WAGs, having been Dr Tavakoli’s companion for 25 years.
Sheeva rarely has a hair out of place or line to be seen on her flawless visage, but despite her ageless look she has never been operated on by her husband.
‘She doesn’t come to me for any work which is excellent. She maybe just does Botox with other people. But no, I don’t operate on her,’ he tells me.
Sheeva is famous for her lavish soirées at the waterfront home in Darling Point she shares with Dr Tavakoli, but rarely refers her friends to her husband.
‘I don’t like to operate on people I know,’ Dr Tavakoli adds.
‘Sometimes you have to operate on people you know because eastern suburbs are so small, but generally speaking, I’d rather not operate on [Sheeva’s] friends.’
Dr Rohit Kumar (pictured) has made a name for himself in Sydney as one of the best when it comes to natural-looking breast augmentations
Dr Rohit Kumar
Dr Rohit Kumar has made a name for himself in Sydney as one of the best when it comes to natural-looking breast augmentations.
Though located in Leichhardt, in the inner west, his clientele is dominated by wealthy women from the eastern suburbs and north shore.
Known for his ‘mummy makeovers’, tummy tucks and breast surgery, Dr Kumar reserves his finest work for women after pregnancy or weight loss.
Unsurprisingly, Ozempic has become his new best friend.
In 2018, he was named one of 100 Global Aesthetic Leaders at the MyFaceMyBody Awards, and boasts more than 15,000 operations under his belt over 20 years.
Dr Kumar aims to create the most natural look possible for his well-heeled clients, and is often praised for his subtle and state-of-the-art craft.
He is said to often tell his patients to ‘do it right or do it twice’ when it comes to breast augmentation and regularly evolves his work with new techniques.
Dr Edmund Ek (pictured) is a favourite among Victorian housewives looking for a nip or a tuck, but he also does plenty of admirable work in the public sector
Dr Edmund Ek
Dr Ek has a private clinic in Richmond, Melbourne, but the specialist plastic surgeon also works in the public sector.
He is a consultant at The Alfred Hospital, just over the road from Albert Park, where he leads the trauma, burns and plastics reconstructive unit.
Dr Ek is also a tenured senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Medicine.
With 15 years in the industry under his belt – and four years of speciality training before that – Dr Ek says his private clinic has been built on reputation.
‘I’ve been lucky enough that most of my practice has been built through word of mouth,’ he tells me.
‘Just putting my head down, doing the hard work and looking after my patients.’
It’s that attitude in particular that has garnered Dr Ek enormous success among Melbourne’s elite.
‘The most important thing to building a practice is providing that one-on-one care and getting good results. The rest of it takes care of itself,’ he adds.
But the good doctor says he couldn’t do any of it by himself, and makes a point of giving a shout-out to his personal assistant, Amy, and the hard-working staff at his private clinic.
He is best known among Melbourne high society as an expert in breast surgery and ‘body contouring’, a medical procedure that reshapes the body.
‘That probably forms about 70 to 80 per cent of my private practice,’ Dr Ek says.
However, workers at The Alfred will have seen Dr Ek milling about their halls as well.
‘I still do general plastics, trauma surgery. I work at the Alfred still once a week to do trauma. I do cancer reconstructions,’ he says.
‘Bit of variety there. But most of the private work is breast surgery and body surgery.’
And despite what critics of plastic surgery may think, Dr Ek says he finds the work ‘rewarding’ because it ‘makes a big difference’ in the lives of his private clients.
‘It’s rewarding work. A lot of people kind of think that cosmetic surgery and this type of aesthetic surgery isn’t necessary but it makes a big difference for people,’ he says.
‘It does change the way in which they look at themselves and feel about themselves. I think it is rewarding in that sense.’
Dr Ek also takes great joy in the ‘creativity’ that comes with aesthetic plastic surgery.
‘That individuality and the ability to express yourself a bit more comes through in your surgery. That’s probably to most appealing part of it,’ he says.
Of all the surgeons on this list, Professor Mark Ashton (left, with cosmetic specialist Alex Pike) appears to have one of the most extensive careers to date
Professor Mark Ashton
Of all the surgeons on our list, Professor Ashton appears to have one of the most impressive careers to date.
The East Melbourne-based doctor is a Clinical Professor of Surgery and Honorary Professor of Anatomy at the University of Melbourne.
He is also the Chair of Plastic Surgery at Epworth Freemasons Hospital and was previously the Head of Plastic Surgery at The Royal Melbourne Hospital (2001-2016) and Royal Women’s Hospital (2000-2016).
Prof Ashton has established himself as a pillar of his industry, serving on the Board of Training and Council for the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons, The New Zealand Society of Plastic Surgeons, and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
And in addition to advising the Victorian Government, he is also the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Australasian Journal of Plastic Surgery.
His extensive list of accomplishments goes on, and even includes hundreds of published academic works.
But with 17 years of training and just over 25 years in the field, Prof Ashton has one thing to say about his decades-long career: ‘I’m getting old.’
It was a light-hearted joke to emphasise how experience is essential in his field.
‘What I found getting older is that the surgery has become much more predictable. You know what works and what doesn’t work,’ he says.
And while he mainly works in breast surgery for wealthy Melburnians, Prof Ashton reveals his real passion lies elsewhere.
‘The surgery I love is reconstructive surgery that involves developing a plan, either by myself or with a group of people, and then being able to implement that plan to fix a problem that is otherwise very difficult to cure,’ he tells me.
‘It could be reconstruction of a part that is missing or has been damaged or has been deformed as a matter of botched cosmetic surgery.
‘That surgery which involves planning and reconstruction is the surgery that I love the most.’
Prof Ashton adds that giving his clients the best ‘personalised care’ is what he is most proud of, but stresses his practice is a team effort, not a solo operation.
Dr Craig Rubinstein (pictured) of Coco Ruby Plastic Surgery in Hawthorn East, Melbourne, easily makes the list as one of the east coast’s most renowned plastic surgeons
Dr Craig Rubinstein
Dr Rubinstein of Coco Ruby Plastic Surgery in Hawthorn East, Melbourne, easily makes the list as one of Australia’s most renowned plastic surgeons.
Victorian socialites have been seeing the highly qualified doctor for more than 25 years for all their breast surgery needs.
With more than 7,000 boob jobs under his belt, Dr Rubinstein has trained in Switzerland, Britain and America. He has been published in several Australian and international medical journals, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences.
Dr Rubinstein has also been known to give his professional opinion on plastic surgery trends to the national media.
He specialises in breast surgery and abdominoplasty work – also known as a ‘tummy tuck’ – both of which are very popular among Melbourne’s elite.
According to his clinic’s website, Dr Rubinstein is dedicated to giving his high-society clients a personalised experience when they visit him.
‘I take particular care in ensuring clients are able to make fully informed decisions regarding their surgery,’ he writes.
‘Patients must be aware of their options and choices, and how to operate throughout their recovery period for scar minimisation and pain management.’
Aesthetic Edge by Dr Jeremy Hunt (pictured) is the talk of the town among elite housewives in Sydney and Wollongong
Dr Jeremy Hunt
Aesthetic Edge by Dr Jeremy Hunt is the talk of the town among elite housewives in Sydney and Wollongong.
With two clinics in New South Wales, Dr Hunt boasts more than 20 years’ experience in the field of plastic surgery, with thousands of patients on his books. He specialises in tailoring clients’ surgery needs to their lifestyles and ’employs a one-on-one approach’ to help his clients.
Dr Hunt graduated from Sydney University with a Bachelor of Medicine in 1990 and is a member of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgery.
He has also studied in the U.S., where he learned from some of the world’s best plastic surgeons while completing a Fellowship at the University of Texas.
When he’s not moulding the perfect figure for a housewife or entrepreneur from Sydney’s ritziest suburbs, Dr Hunt is the spokesperson for the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons.
He also works as the Supervisor of Plastic Surgery Training at Sydney Children’s Hospital and as a Consultant Surgeon for both the Prince of Wales Hospital and Sydney Children’s Hospital.
Dr Michael Miroshnik (pictured) is an award-winning plastic surgeon who works directly out of Bondi – or ‘Babe Central’ as some like to call it
Dr Michael Miroshnik
Dr Miroshnik is an award-winning plastic surgeon who works directly out of Bondi, specialising in breast and body surgery for those eager to flaunt the perfect bikini body at the world-famous beach.
And he has the medals to show for it.
The handsome doctor won consecutive global aesthetic awards between 2015 and 2017, including Best Plastic and Best Aesthetic Surgery Practice in all of Australasia.
He also bagged an international Hall of Fame nod and is a member of several leading societies in the Australian plastic surgery industry.
And before he was even established in his field, he won the coveted Sidney Clipsham Memorial Prize in Operative Surgery shortly after completing his six years of medical and surgical training at the University of Sydney.
He went on to do a further 10 years of training in aesthetic plastic surgery, working in all the major hospitals in Sydney, where he has performed more than 5,000 procedures.
But Dr Miroshnik didn’t stop there.
Determined to become the best in the biz – and keep all the Aussie socialites happy -he worked throughout Europe to learn the latest techniques in plastic surgery.
He spent time in London, Paris, Rome and Stockholm working with the leading surgeons in the world.
Dr Miroshnik has been in private practice since 2008, and educates other plastic surgeons on the intricacies of breast and body aesthetic surgery in his spare time.
