The western world’s attitude to ageing has changed dramatically, and none of us has escaped the consequences. Even if you stand firm and let nature take its course, there’ll be plenty of friends and colleagues who have no intention of doing likewise, so the landscape of ageing has changed for ever. Now we’re entering a new and crucial phase — post the Bride of Wildenstein and Leslie Ash’s trout pout and Sharon Osbourne’s fabulous makeover. This is the moment when the new rules are being established: how real women should age, as opposed to Cher. What we genuinely want to look like when we’re in our fifties. And the interesting part is that the consensus is not what you might think. The backlash against the plastic pursuit of youth has begun.

We’ve already had the first confirmation that our love affair with anti-ageing procedures has hit a wall. Earlier this year, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons announced that facelifts have fallen off the list of the top five cosmetic treatments requested in the USA. This doesn’t mean, of course, that American women have gone back to putting their trust in soap and water and plenty of sleep, but it does mean that they are being turned off by extreme surgery — the facelifts that give you those cat’s eyes and baboon cheekbones, that telltale tautness and captivated expression. Fake is fine, but nobody wants to have a face, or a body, that can be totted up in terms of hours spent on the operating table. It’s like Ugg boots: when you get copies everywhere, even the good ones start to look tacky, and you have to look for an alternative.

Elsewhere, there are signs that the worship of youthful looks in fashion may have run its course. Karl Lagerfeld, who can always be relied on to scent the first whiff of change, has already declared his position on the subject. When the rumour was circulating recently that Lindsay Lohan might be the new face of Chanel, his crushing response was, “I prefer Nicole Kidman and that generation at the moment.” He has also come out as a Camilla Parker Bowles fan — “She is the life of the party! She’s sparkling, she’s witty” — while her younger predecessor, Diana, he dismissed as “pretty and sweet, but she was stupid”. Meanwhile, Camilla, a woman who was pretty much invisible two years ago, is suddenly being fêted as an example of that rare creature, someone in the public eye who is comfortable with being as old as they are.

So, are we on the verge of rejecting the cosmetic advances of the past decade, or are we just pulling back a little on the throttle? The answer lies with the Hollywood women for whom this is a real and pressing issue — to boldly go the Brigitte Bardot route (see how we’ve changed — that 71-year-old face looks horrific to us now) or to call in the anti-ageing specialists.

There has been some significant movement in the Hollywood camp — at least in terms of publicity. Teri Hatcher, the classic example of the too-thin, too-worked-on older actress, recently announced that she was laying off the procedures and regretted those she’d already had. Jennifer Aniston, when accused by an old flatmate of having had a nose job, rushed to deny ever having had any work. And Sharon Stone, on the publicity tour for Basic Instinct 2, deliberately made her age (48), and her pleasure at being that age, the talking point of the movie.

Now this is Hollywood, so it’s all about degree. Nobody is suggesting that any of these women rely on good underwear and light-reflecting moisturiser alone. But the key is, they no longer subscribe to the Demi Moore, “make me over in the image of my younger self” philosophy. Even in Beverly Hills, they have felt change in the air: a shift away from the Nip/Tuck modular look to somewhere nearer the softer, has-she-or-hasn’t-she-had-treatment? The truth is, age still scares us, but the market for blemish-free young looks has been spoilt by too many liver lips, shiny foreheads and chipmunk cheeks, and the scales have been tipped back in favour of normality — or a slightly tweaked version of it.

If you look at it in phases, there’s Joan Rivers (the wind-tunnel effect), Cher (60, and still smooth as an aubergine), and now we’ve arrived at Sharon Stone, Kristin Scott Thomas and Sarah Jessica Parker. The difference is, they’ve probably had some assistance, but of the needle and dermabrasion sort as opposed to the scalpel. Their faces may be smoother than you get from great genes alone, but the look is fresh and fit, rather than distorted and drum-tight. Sharon Stone’s co-star, David Morrissey, got it in one when he described her as being “in great condition”. That’s the new aesthetic goal: you want to be admired for looking in terrific shape, considering. It’s about looking good for your age, great for your age if possible, but not spectacularly, implausibly preserved. How you get there is a different matter.

In reality, this development is about the huge growth of noninvasive surgery (fillers, Botox). Nobody talks about “my surgeon” any more; now it’s all about your dermatologist, which, conveniently, is a term that encompasses everything from acne cures to lip-fillers. You tell your friends that your skin doctor is seeing you for sun damage, but he happens to be sorting out those “marionette” lines with some strategic injections at the same time.

A businesswoman I know, who is a fan of Botox, thinks the difference is that women are used to a dramatically higher standard of maintenance than they were in the past, so it’s a matter of moving on from the regular waxes and pedicures to laser hair removal and teeth whitening, then on to needle procedures. “It’s more about looking fresh than young for me. The thing about Botox is that nobody notices; it’s like having your hair highlighted. You can persuade yourself it’s maintenance, like having a facial. It is a really quick fix, and nobody knows I do it.”

The backlash may stop short of these “mother’s little helpers”, but it is part of a new acceptance that an ageing face, providing its owner is clean-living and maintenance-conscious (a given these days), is not the social death that we had assumed. Susie Forbes, the editor of Easy Living magazine, says the past few years have confirmed her commitment to ageing gracefully. “Nobody can fail to have noticed how samey the surgery set look, and I include fillers and Botox and eyelifts. Increasingly, I feel quite pleased with myself when I’m in their presence. I think there is a genuine backlash; women are starting to feel good about not having taken that route.”

Others aren’t quite as ready to just say no, but agree that we have reached a crossroads. “You know what’s happened?” says a 50-year-old actress. “The frozen face looks dumb. It’s become the mark of a bimbo. We’re expected to age a lot better than our mothers, but the pendulum has swung back and now it’s about being clever — good make-up and keeping fit and having the odd discreet tweak. That’s the classy solution. And I think this has become about class. Lip-fillers make women look like trash — it’s cheapening, simple as that.”

Meanwhile, we civilians are looking at the likes of Mariella Frostrup, whose style and attitude make her seem years younger than she is but who has the lines appropriate to someone of her age. Or Carine Roitfeld, 50, the editor of French Vogue, whose figure is still good enough to model in knickers, but whose face is hardly youthful. More and more, you can make people think you’re a lot younger than you are just by refusing to fade into the background: to adopt the hair appropriate to your age (Roitfeld still sports an Iggy Pop cut) or the style expected of you. Take David Frost’s wife, Lady Carina, who turned up at a funeral recently wearing Prada black-and-gold platform sandals that instantly made her look like someone half her age.

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