Skin Narratives in Eastern England

The county of Essex holds a particular place in the British imaginary. From the sexist stereotype of the ‘Essex girl’, to the monumentally successful reality show ‘The Only Way is Essex’, the county has historically produced counter-hegemonic gendered norms, challenging, and reconfiguring the relationship between excess, beauty, and ageing.

In this event, we take the ‘skin’—the body’s largest organ, and a surface where personal and collective histories, as well as trauma, can be inscribed—as an entry point into the diverse meanings surrounding the booming injectables industry in Essex. We discuss insights from our conversations with aestheticians and plastic surgeons in Eastern England, and present new lines of inquiry into the broader role of skin in psychic, communal, and national life in the UK and beyond.