>> New York Fashion Week is less than a week away, and the tidbits are flowing freely — a compilation of the highlights from the past couple of days:

Double (or Triple) Duty Presentations

• Gareth Pugh confirmed that he will be showing a video directed by Ruth Hogben on Sept. 13 to "set the mood for [his] catwalk show that will take place as usual in Paris." After the private showing, he'll screen the short film in public nearby — get your name on the guest list via MAC's Facebook page. [Style File]
• Temperley London is taking their interactive Spring 2010 multimedia presentation on the road for the second time, starting in New York Sept. 15 before evolving in format for London Fashion Week and then again in Paris, where it will become an exhibit.  The film aspect, plus stills and a behind-the-scenes cut will be readily available online on Temperley's new website.

First look at Yoko Ono for threeASFOUR, and Karl Lagerfeld's attendance status answered »

>> Last year, there was a huge push for more diversity in fashion, culminating in the publication of Vogue Italia's all-black July 2008 issue.  Unfortunately, attention on that issue has waned this year, even though there is still much work to be done; now, the issue du jour seems to be what has become a common practice among fashion magazines: heavy retouching.

Katie Grand, who while at POP was a huge proponent of the "super glossy" look, has since reigned in her reliance on Photoshop.  Of her first issue of LOVE, which came out in February, Katie told Interview, "It's not so retouched.  I just wanted to take pictures of iconic people without redrawing them." And she's continuing the tradition for her second issue, out Sept. 1 — she had Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott (whose aesthetic generally lends itself to a good bit of retouching) photograph cover girl Coco Sumner as she walked in off the street, no hair or makeup.  The Times UK wrote of that decision: "She is shrewdly tapping into the new spirit of the times — heavily airbrushed celebrities seem gauche and embarrassing during a recession."

David Bailey: "It’s f*cking ridiculous" »

>> The second edition of LOVE comes out next week, and even though she just recently got married, editor-in-chief Katie Grand didn't have time for a honeymoon because she had to finish the issue.  Katie is somewhat the antithesis of Anna Wintour in the so-called glamorous world of fashion: she doesn't feel the need to have every hair in place and she doesn't mandate high heels, like Vogue supposedly does.

“I’m really practical,” she recently told the Times UK. “I go to the gym most mornings and I walk everywhere, so that’s why I wear flat shoes and no make-up. It’s not vanity; it’s laziness. I didn’t wear make-up on my wedding day because I didn’t want mascara running down my face if I cried.”  Also missing from the wedding?  The traditional white dress. “I wore an Azzedine Alaïa brown snakeskin dress, which he tortured me for about two months to get into, but at least it’s something I can wear again. I didn’t want some stupid white dress; it seems like such a waste."

Food banned at LOVE's office? »

>> More September Issue Dish: A New LOVE Preview and a Whole Muse Devoted to Natasha Poly —LOVE just released a new preview featuring 13-year-old blogger Tavi of Style Rookie in addition to the first one from earlier this week.  Add Twilight's Taylor Lautner, Taylor Swift, and the Willis Sisters — who were photographed back in May — to the list of "New Blood" featured; so far, the only fashion kids listed are Alexander Wang and Allegra Versace.  Meanwhile, it the spirit of the recent influx of model-dedicated issues, Muse is devoting their entire Fall/Winter 2009 issue to Natasha Poly: among the contributors are Richard Phillips, and if it coincides with a clue on The Imagist, Craig McDean and Terry Richardson, as well. [The Moment, The Imagist]

>> Last week we had a first peek at the inaugural issue of POP, rebooted with Dasha Zhukova at the helm, and now, courtesy of an ad run in the just-released September 2009 issue of Vogue UK (with Kate Moss on the cover), we have a little preview at the second issue of Katie Grand's new baby, LOVE.

 They took the same tactic for the first issue — so the image at left isn't the cover, but rather from an editorial within — but the theme seems to be "New Blood: The Young and the Reckless," with some inclusions listed that have been raising eyebrows — Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers, for instance.  Also making the teaser: 13 year-old Style Rookie blogger Tavi.

Also playing the preview game: Self Service »

>> Katie Grand Is Wearing Alaia for Her Wedding—Katie Grand just had her bachelorette party a couple of weeks ago in London — she's marrying her boyfriend, Pulp bassist Steve Mackey, who she's been with for over 10 years, despite saying last year that "he doesn't want to get married" — and while counting down the days to her wedding in upstate New York, she spent yesterday morning styling LOVE intern Pixie Geldof in Giles Deacon's Cruise 2010 collection at his East London studio.  Katie's engagement ring is Dior Fine Jewelry — she designed it with Victoire de Castellane — and her wedding dress is made-to-measure Azzedine Alaia. [Style.com]

>> 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 »