About the surgeon

Prof. Dr. Ahmet Karacalar

Professor of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery. Sculptor. Author of six books — including Iconoplasty, the one this clinic is named after. For thirty years his work has circled a single question: what makes a body look right when it moves? For the legs, the answer turned out to be equal parts anatomy, sculpture and, for lipoedema, endocrinology.

The sculptor's eye

A surgeon who sculpts

Prof. Karacalar studied sculpture in Paris, Ramsgate and Florence and has held two solo exhibitions. It is not a hobby kept apart from the operating theatre — it is the same discipline. A sculptor reads a figure as one continuous line and removes only what hides it; a leg, he argues, should be treated exactly the same way: from hip to ankle, in proportion, and meant to be seen walking.

At Yeditepe University’s Faculty of Fine Arts he taught Organic Art and Aesthetic Surgery and Anthropological Aesthetic Surgery. Out of those lectures came the idea of iconoplasty — shaping the image of the body the way a sculptor shapes stone — and then the book of the same name. Ikonoplasti, the clinic, is that idea applied to legs.

“Cosmetic surgery should capture or preserve the nuances of beauty.”

— Prof. Dr. Ahmet Karacalar

Bronze works by Prof. Karacalar, Istanbul studio.

Training & career

Thirty years, one standard

Medical degree and plastic-surgery specialty training — Ege University and Uludağ University
Research fellowship on scholarship — Erasmus University, Rotterdam
Clinical training in the UK — St John's Hospital
Advanced courses in Los Angeles, New York, Copenhagen, San Diego, Vienna, Ljubljana, Nuremberg, Florence, Stockholm, Liège, Dubai and Barcelona; VASER 4D body contouring in Colombia
Three first-prize clinical research awards from the Turkish Society of Plastic Surgeons; Uludağ University award for scientific performance
Nearly a year of psychiatry training — the root of his “psycho-aesthetic” approach to consultation

1994

First international first-author paper (hand reconstruction, J Reconstr Microsurg)

1998

“A superdry procedure” — the tourniquet liposuction technique that became Superdry, published in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

2000

Associate Professor. Superdry lipoplasty of the leg and the no-touch fat technique published in Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery

2004

No-touch technique for autologous fat harvesting, Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

2006

Full Professor of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery

2018

Superdry Liposuction 4D in lipohypertrophy and lipoedema — Global Experts Meeting on Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery, Singapore

2023

Lipoedema: An Evolutionary Mismatch published in English, German and Turkish

Research

Published, cited, peer-reviewed

More than sixty first-author papers in Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Annals of Plastic Surgery, the British Journal of Plastic Surgery and the Journal of Hand Surgery. Personal techniques published or presented internationally for lipoedema, leg aesthetics, liposuction, fat injection, rhinoplasty, ear correction, abdominoplasty, breast augmentation and endoscopic brow suspension.

Legs

The Superdry line

The tourniquet-based “superdry” liposuction he first described in 1998 is the direct ancestor of the Superdry 4D technique used for lipoedema at Ikonoplasti today — bloodless, lymph-sparing and staged.

Fat

No-touch fat transfer

His no-touch harvesting method keeps fat cells intact between harvest and injection — the basis of the fat transfer used for calves, knees and hollows in leg contouring.

Form

Anatomy of asymmetry

Anatomical studies on compensatory asymmetry and on the geometry of incisions — the sculptor’s questions, answered with data.

Author

Six books, one philosophy

Two on lipoedema, one on the philosophy of aesthetic surgery, one on sculpture and surgery, and two on the Amazons and the history of the female body. Read together, they explain why this clinic treats legs the way it does.

Where he operates

Istanbul, and London every month

Surgery takes place at Acıbadem Ataşehir Hospital, Istanbul — an accredited hospital with full intensive care and a dedicated international patient department. Consultations are held at the clinic in Varyap Meridian, Ataşehir, and in London once a month.

Told it's "just weight"? It may be lipoedema.

Understand it

Treat it

One continuous line, from hip to foot.

Shape

Refine

Prof. Dr. Ahmet Karacalar

Ikonoplasti

Prof. Dr. Ahmet Karacalar

A surgeon who sculpts

Thirty years, one standard

Published, cited, peer-reviewed

The Superdry line

No-touch fat transfer

Anatomy of asymmetry

Six books, one philosophy

Istanbul, and London every month

Meet him before you decide

Treatments

Patients

Contact