in the looking glass

>> Need more proof that Anna Selezneva is Carine Roitfeld's new favorite? Check out "Hor la Loi" ("Outlaw"), the September 2008 Vogue Paris editorial in which Carine styled Anna as herself, complete with sky-high heels, leopard print, and of course, lots of the requisite black.
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>> Remember back in June when Kate Moss was shooting an editorial in Istanbul for W magazine?  The "Hammam" photos appear in the September 2008 issue, shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, with a sultry Kate against the backdrop of a Turkish bath.  It's classic exotic Kate — and there's even a chain-link bikini involved.

Full gallery below (NSFW).
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>> Two things are for sure: Karl Lagerfeld is still loving black and white photography and those bobs — he's used them for his Fall 2008 Chanel couture show, the Fall 2008 Fendi ads, the Fall 2008 Chanel ads, and now he's put Karmen Pedaru in one alongside Heidi Mount and Vlada Roslyakova. The three girls feature in "La Couture," a film noir-inspired couture editorial he photographed for Numero #96.  Don't worry, it's not all Chanel couture, but those three must be his go-to couture girls — they seem like Karl's types, and they were all in Chanel's most recent couture show.
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>> Juergen Teller has been known to take some pervy photographs in his time — the set of 28 awkward nude self-portraits from 2004 (NSFW), some with Charlotte Rampling, come to mind.  But those were self-portraits — the 50-page spread Teller did of Mariacarla Boscono in the Summer 2008 issue of French men's mag Paradis Magazine is a different story.

Among the shots chronicling "an erotic journey" in Rome, there's one picture that gets up close and personal with Mariacarla's nether regions — very in-your-face, like an American Apparel ad taken to the next level. Paradis' goal is to tap into the French tradition of eroticism, and the other photos from the editorial fit that bill, but this crotch shot . . . well, not so much.

Gallery below NSFW.
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>> Michelle Williams is used to others snooping around in her business, but for Scott Sternberg's Fall 2008 Boy by Band of Outsiders look book, she got to play a snoop in interior designer Paul Fortune's house. 

Sternberg took all the pictures himself with a seventies-era Polaroid camera, set on capturing Michelle informally: "There [wasn't] hair and makeup . . . no lights or anything."  His regular stylist Tina Chai was present, to ensure the look book had the un-stylized look he was going for. 

The laid-back theme is being carried over into Band of Outsiders's Spring 2009 presentation, which will involve a film featuring two or three of Sternberg's celebrity friends instead of a catwalk.  As for the reasoning?  The designer told WWD: "I don’t make runway clothes. These are clothes you wear on the street, so I’m just super-uncomfortable with it. It puts it in totally the wrong context — I want to do something closer to where the clothes are, and let people actually touch and feel them as opposed to seeing them on a 14-year-old anorexic model."
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>> After all the hype the July 2008 issue of Vogue Italia garnered, questions arose as to whether the issue was a one-time publicity stunt or an actual attempt at industry change.  When the August 2008 Vogue Italia cover dropped featuring five white models earlier this week, the questions were hardly silenced.  But Franca Sozzani has decided to follow through with the August issue, giving July cover girl Jourdan Dunn an editorial, "The Now Ease," styled by Edward Enninful and photographed by Emma Summerton.  I wonder if Pat McGrath did makeup?  It would make an almighty trio: black model, stylist, and makeup artist.
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>> PETA has long targeted Anna Wintour for her fur patronage, even going so far as to throw tofu pie in her face in 2005, but Carine Roitfeld may have just put herself on the hit list.  In the August 2008 issue of Vogue Paris, Carine styled a shoot starring a fur-draped Raquel Zimmermann brazenly giving faceless PETA-like activists the bird.  Only a couple of pictures from the Mario Testino-shot editorial have appeared so far, but these images are sure to stir the pot.
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>> In the second installment of Vogue editors styling models as themselves for the August 2008 issue, may I introduce Tanya Dziahileva as fashion director Tonne Goodman.  The stick-straight blonde hair, solid-colored clothes, and sunglasses are all spot on.

Karen Elson as creative director Grace Coddington still takes the cake, though; Filling out the rest of the editorial are Sasha Pivovarova as Elissa Santisi, Raquel Zimmermann as Marie Amelie Sauve, and Maryna Linchuk as Tabitha Simmons, none of which are as well-done. 
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>> In a fun riff on Carine Roitfeld's iconic Vogue Paris editorial with Snejana Onopka posing as Anna Wintour, the August 2008 issue of Vogue has an editorial featuring five models styled by five different Vogue editors in their own style.  Sasha Pivovarova, Raquel Zimmermann, Maryna Linchuk, Tanya Dziahileva are all involved, but first up, Karen Elson as Vogue's cat-loving creative director Grace Coddington.
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