A 38-year-old former Miss Argentina, Solange Magnano, died over the weekend from complications resulting from cosmetic surgery, friends says.

"This woman who had everything is dead because she wanted to have a slightly firmer ass," said Roberto Piazza, a fashion designer and close friend of Magnano, who frequently appeared as a runway model in his fashion shows.

Magnano, Miss Argentina 1994, a married mother of eight-year-old twins, went under the knife at a plastic surgery centre in the capital, Buenos Aires, on Thursday hoping to tone up her derriere.

She was rushed to hospital on Friday suffering from a pulmonary embolism and died on Sunday, her friends said.

"She only underwent the procedure because she thought it was no big deal," said Guillermo Azar, another associate from the fashion world and a close friend of Magnano.

Juan Carlos Seiler, former president of a Buenos Aires association of plastic surgeons, suggested the doctor who performed the procedure might not have been "a real professional from an approved" cosmetic surgery centre.

About 50,000 plastic surgery procedures were performed in Argentina last year, a 60 per cent increase over 2003, with a growing number of foreigners seeking inexpensive cosmetic enhancements accounting for much of the increase.

AFP