>> In the March 2008 issue of Vogue, premier retoucher of fashion photographs, Pascal Dangin, tweaked a total of 144 images, from ads to editorial spreads, and in The September Issue, which focuses on the making of Vogue's September 2007 issue, Anna Wintour definitely displays a reliance on retouching, asking Mario Testino to superimpose cover girl Sienna Miller's head from one shot onto her body in another shot, and requesting that a cameraman's gut from an editorial shot be diminished, to Grace Coddington's dismay: "Everybody isn't perfect in this world.  It's enough that the models are perfect."

When digital manipulation programs first came into use in the early '90s, reports Eric Wilson for The New York Times, art directors originally used them to create a heightened sense of reality like images achieved through movie special effects — "hyper real" style, as former The Face art director and current Love creative director Lee Swillingham coined it — as a reaction against the images of supermodels that looked too perfect. Editors weren't suggesting the resulting look be attainable, Swillingham explains: “We were trying to create a future fashion. You could do something that looked gritty and real or something that looked like plastic.”

Now, some major photographers are pushing for less plastic, more real »

>> Waves were made last month when Gisele Bundchen replaced Kate Moss in her longstanding run atop the Models.com Top Icons list.  But Gisele can sell, according to The Independent — she commands up to $20 million for a single contract, and when she was signed by C&A in Brazil for a series of advertisements, sales increased 30 percent.

Photographer Alice Hawkins, who once shot Gisele at her Manhattan penthouse triplex, says the model is "very clever about making money — it’s an interest of hers.”  And she keeps it in the family — she now employs four of her five siblings, as her manager, her lawyer, her accountant, and her web developer.

Her business savvy caught the attention of economist Fred Fuld, who developed the Gisele Bundchen Stock Index, which charts the performance of companies who have employed Gisele like LVMH, Volkswagen, and News Corp, who financed the The Devil Wears Prada, in which Bündchen had a cameo role: “She could have become the spokeswoman for General Motors or Ford, both of which have received government bailouts and may yet declare themselves bankrupt. But Volkswagen is in much better shape, and is even considering buying Porsche."

Fuld found, reports The Independent:

By the end of 2007, Gisele’s index was up 29 per cent in comparison to the Dow’s 6.5 per cent. And when she terminated the Victoria’s Secret contract, parent company Limited Brand’s share price fell 31.5 per cent. And, although the Gisele Index is down 15.7 per cent between 2007 and 2009, it still managed to outperform the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was down over 30 per cent during the same period.

Not only does Gisele sell well and choose her investments and opportunities wisely, she also gives high client satisfaction, according to Nick Knight: “Where some models take the money [for commercial, rather than editorial, work] and are then embarrassed to enter into it, when she’s decided to do the campaign, she’s 100 per cent behind it.  If they ask her to say ‘This is the best lipstick in the world’, she does. It’s slightly tongue in cheek, but you get swept along with her enthusiasm.”

"I’ve made her lie naked on hospital floors" »

>> Happy Love Day!  Yes, Valentine's Day was a few days ago, but Katie Grand's new endeavor, Love, officially launched today, brand new website and all.  336 pages of glossy, almost half of which are ads, and the reviews seem to be positive; inside, creative directors Lee Swillingham and Stuart Spalding went with a post-war look (left), and if naked pictures of Beth Ditto weren't included, a quick glance might make you think you were flipping through a '50s college yearbook.  In honor of the launch, Katie recently did an interview with a close friend that was published in PonyStep, detailing how she settled on the title Love, why she ended up leaving POP in the first place, and how she feels about it going on without her.

It wasn't Love at first.

Well I really liked [the name] ‘Fame’, with its Warhol and Bowie connotations. I also liked ‘Plastic’. It was that idea that the name didn’t necessarily mean one thing, that everyone would visualize something different. Anyway, we couldn’t use either. ‘Plastic’ we couldn’t use because of Plastique Magazine and Fame we couldn’t use because of an American magazine of the same name.  It took about five months before we finally came to a decision. Another one we liked for a short while was Legend, and then when the lawyers said we could use it we changed our minds, it sounded wrong. There was also ‘X’ and ‘Sex’ (which rather surprisingly was available). We’d normally send the legal types five possible titles to clear at a time. It was quite a dreary and expensive procedure. ‘Starlet’ was another one we could have used, but when we got confirmation we felt deflated rather than elated so that had to go. Another big favourite was ‘Heroine’, but of course I was told absolutely no way!

Love "was a bit mushy" »

>>  If one fashion magazine isn't hurt by the current economic conditions, it has to be Katie Grand's new endeavor for Conde Nast UK, Love.  The "high-end," "edgy" magazine, which was originally being tossed around for a February or March 2009 launch, is going full-steam ahead — new logo above — with an official launch on Feb. 19.  Katie has taken most of her team from POP — including creative directors Lee Swillingham and Stuart Spalding, plus fashion editor Phoebe Arnold, who masqueraded around as a gravestone with the POP logo on it at Halloween.

New additions to the team include — as rumored — Francesca Burns, formerly of i-D, as senior fashion editor-at-large, plus Mark Frith, former editor of celebrity rag Heat, as editorial consultant.  And Katie won't be the only stylist heavyweight on board — Joe McKenna is on the masthead as senior contributing fashion editor.