“Hope this helps,” Jenner wrote in her comment to Leary. But … does it? Breast augmentation is, as Dr. Fisher notes, a bespoke procedure, its every aspect customized to suit not only an individual’s goals but their lifestyle and anatomy—the precise measurements of their chest, how much natural breast tissue they have at baseline, the elasticity of their skin, whether or not this is their first breast surgery, and various other factors.
Since “you and I don’t know what Kylie’s dimensions are, we don’t know exactly how those implants were chosen for her,” says Kelly Killeen, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. “So, when you come in asking for ‘The Kylie,’ you might be shaped very differently than her—you might have a different breast footprint or a different amount of breast tissue—and you’re not going to get that same result.”
Let’s start with Jenner’s reported implant size and profile: 445 ccs is a relatively large implant that would bring the average woman up about three full cup sizes. Combine this amount of volume with the width of a moderate-profile implant, and “you end up with a very Jessica Rabbit look,” says Dr. Killeen. Jerry Chidester, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Draper, Utah, also noted that this particular implant can create a rather exaggerated effect. “The 445 moderate profile is a pretty wide implant and it’s less projected,” he explains. “You can see that the implants come up high near [Jenner’s] collarbone and they’re closely touching in the midline,” meaning the middle of her chest.
While Jenner might be comfortable with this look, it’s not for everyone. “If you took that 445 cc implant and put it in 100 women’s chests, it would look incredibly different across the board, because everyone’s anatomy is unique,” Dr. Chidester says. What’s more, adds Dr. Killeen, on Jenner, these implants “don’t look truly as large as they are because of her [presumed] BBL.” Without those complementary curves, “her breasts would look much larger than they do right now, but because she’s [allegedly] had this, frankly, large BBL, her breasts now match her hips,” making her appear more proportional overall. (Jenner has never publicly admitted to having a BBL, or Brazilian butt lift, but some surgeons speculate that she has, at some point, enhanced her butt and hips with fat injections to create her current shape.)
A 445 cc implant will surely work well for some patients, even if it bucks current plastic surgery trends. Over the past few years, the majority of plastic surgeons have been reporting a collective shift towards smaller implants. Dr. Killeen tells me that fewer than 5% of her patients choose implants over 400 ccs. “Almost all of my augmentations for the last year have been in the range of 175 to 300 ccs,” she says. Dr. Chidester has seen a similar downsizing. “My average volume was closer to 400 ccs a few years ago, but it’s come down slowly over time. Now, probably less than 15% of my patients are going higher than 400 ccs.”
Could Jenner’s enormous influence over aesthetics reverse the petite-implant trend? It’s possible, surgeons say, and they’re worried about what this could mean for women. “A beauty standard that is unobtainable by anything other than surgery is not something I want to go back to,” says Dr. Killeen, referring to outsized breasts and butts that were popular a decade ago. “I have an 11-year-old daughter and this is not a world I want her to live in.” While Dr. Killeen hopes “the shift towards smaller, more proportionate implants sticks,” she fully expects to have patients coming in and asking for The Kylie—and without truly grasping the possible consequences of their request.