Robyn Lawley strikes again - in Vogue Australia's first ever plus size fashion shoot

max doyle for vogue australia september 2011

On the occasion of her groundbreaking recent cover of Vogue Italia, alongside two other plus-sized models, we mentioned that Australia’s Robyn Lawley had another high fashion coup up her sleeve, just shot in Australia with Max Doyle. Frockwriter can reveal that that shoot is in fact a 10-page designer fashion editorial called 'Belle Curve' in the September edition of Vogue Australia, which is out on August 3rd. Subscriber copies landed today (thanks to our tipster who emailed the shots in). The editorial is accompanied by a double-page interview with Lawley. According to Kirstie Clements' editor's letter, this is the first time in Vogue Australia's 52-year history that the magazine has shot a plus-sized model for a fashion editorial. Hot on the heels of Lawley’s Vogue Italia cover and her Elle France cover in April, 2011 is turning out to be a banner year for Lawley, Bonner and the plus size-specialist modelling industry. 

Clements continues in her editor's letter:

“This is the first time Vogue Australia has shot a larger model and of course now that we have done it, I ask myself why we didn’t do it sooner. But that’s because Robyn is especially gorgeous. I went to the shoot to meet her and was transfixed by her beauty and poise. She is a truly super duper model. When a plus size model first turns up to the studio, she may be an anomaly to a team normally used to working with size 6’s, but once photographer Max Doyle started shooting Robyn, we quickly readjusted our preconceived notions of beauty. She doesn’t actually look plus size to me at all now. I said to a colleague on set later that day, “And men like curves don’t they?” He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Yes Kirsty, we certainly do” was his laconic reply. It’s an interesting conversation – the world of high fashion and fuller-figured women. One that needs to be continued”.

According to Lawley's Australian agent, Chelsea Bonner, the director of plus size-specialist agency Bella Model Management, the Vogue Australia editorial is an even sweeter victory than the Vogue Italia cover. 

“The amazing thing about the Vogue Australia shoot is that they actually dressed her - went out and found these beautiful designer garments to wear” Bonner told frockwriter. “Which just proves the point that there is clothing available for plus size models to wear in high fashion, it just takes a little bit of extra effort to find them. Vogue Australia went to that effort and the results are incredible”.

Of the rollercoaster media ride that ensued in the wake of the Italian cover, Bonner adds, “It went viral worldwide, has been commented on in I don’t know how many hundreds of magazines, blog sites and newspapers. And it reflects, I think, definitely the shift in consumers. Women want to see more realistic-sized models in magazines. They’re screaming for it. The response that we had from Italian Vogue was absolutely out of control. But my personal opinion is that Australian Vogue has blown Italian Vogue out of the water because of the fact that it is a true fashion editorial - rather than having curvy girls in lingerie, like they normally do. It’s not just having a token plus size model. It’s a true fashion editorial”.  

photographer: max doyle
fashion editor: meg gray
fashion assistant: megha kapoor
makeup: justine purdue
hair: renya xydis

"We need fashion to catch up to women of size" - Velvet d'Amour

steven meisel for vogue italia

Much has been written about this month’s Vogue Italia cover story of three plus sized models: Americans Tara Lynn and Candice Huffine and Australian Robyn Lawley. Frockwriter covered the story here. Above and below is the remainder of the accompanying fashion editorial. This edition has been hailed as a watershed moment in the body image debate by some, including Australian commentator Mia Freedman, the chair of Australia’s National Body Image Advisory Group, who noted: “Huzzah! An Australian size 14 is on the cover of Italian Vogue”. Others weren't quite so perky. “Topless plus size women equals empowerment?” asked womens’ advocate Melinda Tankard Reist. Some suggested the move was tokenistic. While others lamented the fact that the women had been photographed semi-nude in lingerie, which only served to reinforce, they noted, the sexualised cliché of larger women and porn. What says plus size icon Velvet d’Amour? 

Regular readers of my various blogs would know that Velvet is an American actor, model – and latterly, photographer - who lives in Paris. 

We first met after the Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 2007 show in Paris in October 2006, in which Velvet walked alongside Gemma Ward and other "straight"-sized models, generating headlines around the world. Gaultier's casting appeared to be a direct nod to fashion's latest skinny model debate, that had been sparked in August that year by the eating disorder-related death of Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos, which was swiftly followed by the deaths of two other South American models, including her sister Eliana. Velvet had previously walked for John Galliano. 

Here are the interviews I did with Velvet at smh.com.au and later at news.com.au. In the latter, which generated quite some heated (and at times abusive) commentary, Velvet talked about the flak she has copped from the plus size industry, which has always considered her far too big for its ranks. 

Here is her take on Vogue Italia's June issue, body diversity in high fashion imagery and the commonly-espoused theory that fashion's embrace of larger women encourages obesity:

maya guez via anna scholz

First off, congrats to your Aussie sister Robyn for scoring some great work of late. She and the models featured are definite beauties!

There is certainly a lot of talk about the Italian Vogue shoot. Mainstream folk seem to take offence to the fact that the models included are even deemed PLUS, when they are more ‘average’ size women, and others discuss a sense of exploitation, a lack of actual ‘fashion’, and then the inevitable health debate, while many are quite simply thrilled by it.

The way I see it is, that we need fashion to catch up to women of size, in order to make a stunning FASHION orientated editorial. If you were to take the average Vogue Italia editorial, and attempt to dress these same models in the clothes, best of luck to the stylist to find their size.

As to a sense of exploitation, or ‘soft porn’ feel, my sense is that our minds have been programmed via mainstream fashion to question FLESH. Fleshy, curvy women have been relegated to men’s magazines, whilst edgy editorial fashion in particular, has been inundating us with imagery glorifying adolescence (sometimes using models even as young as 13); the standard sample size forces the use of more skeletal models; and the opening of the Eastern bloc countries (where women are naturally quite delicately slender) caused an influx of lanky lovelies to grace the pages of our magazines and thus it’s really quite normal that the curves here are deemed as more risqué. We have been fed a steady diet of rail thin, white, tall, Youth for the most part. Thus instead of delving further into what Beauty means to us as individuals, the tendency is not to question authority. And VOGUE is certainly the pinnacle of authority when it comes to Fashion.

Yet were we to take what is the essence of the true meaning of FASHION in all likelihood it encompasses and revels in Change, in decadence, in obscurity versus ordinary, in risk-taking. While fashion beckons followers and innovation creates fashion, it’s those who deviate from accepted norms who create so much of our fashion from the get go. Fashion is innovative, tumultuous and it’s not meant to stagnate. Sameness is born of the dependence fashion magazines have on advertisers, who tend to be the very last people to take risk (due to the amount of money involved). It is this unlikely marriage of two opposing yet dependant components which has stagnated the blossoming of fashion, and in turn, its’ muses.

I have always been drawn to Steven Meisel’s photography and find these images equally stunning, though not particularly controversial in my opinion. I have stated on my own model portfolio (on the Model Mayhem website),
 

I'd say a good 99.999% of the artists interested in working with me wanna get me naked, not that I blame them, lol

It is quite the odd dichotomy that as a society, fat is viewed with derision, yet should one go out on a limb and include a genuinely voluptuous model, 9 times out of 10 they will do so by harkening back to the Renaissance. Rubens and the like, are seemingly our only reference point for a larger body.

Given I shoot as well, and certainly have photographed my fair share of nudes of all shapes and sizes, I understand the drive.

Were Herb Ritts to come back to life, I'd greet the boy starker’s.

I have posed nude for photographers like Daniele + Iango, Rancinan and in the film AVIDA, etc. thus I do not dismiss all tasteful nude propositions, but my main reason for modeling is in fact, as a political statement; that we need to diversify modern standards of beauty. If we continually marry the fat body with nude classics, then we are hardly creating a revolution. It's too easy in a sense, one gets a 'different' look and perhaps is praised for such, but if you really want to be revolutionary, then why not do a FASHION shoot with a bigger body versus pulling out the old Botticelli standard? 

As to the continuing Health debate, many a comment revolves around the message sent by using a woman of ‘size’, some stating the models are ‘obese’ and unhealthy, others fearful it will encourage people to be fat. The concept that fashion magazines are a reference guide of health to their viewers, seems only rarely pertinent on occasion, when we witness an exceptionally thin model, and inevitably whenever we possibly include a slightly curvy model. The reality that cultural pressures are one of the factors involved in eating disorders cannot be dismissed, though the notion that someone leafing through a magazine witnessing a plus size model has a sudden urge to down several thousand pizzas in the hopes of gaining a few pounds, is rather laughable at best. Were the inclusion of plus size models to spur viewers to gain weight, the inverse of that logic would mean (given the dearth of rail thin models in magazines), that the entire world would be emaciated, versus fat.

Time and again the issue of health is touted as a pertinent reason for the near total exclusion of fat women in modern media. Yet let’s have a look at who we utterly deify in popular culture, without questioning for a second their physical or mental health. Then ask yourself just how legitimate an argument it is to impose upon plus size models the responsibility of being the poster children for bonne santé, when we have no clue as to any model’s state of health when looking at her dancing through the pages of a magazine. Au contraire, we are well aware that a great number of popular actors, models, dancers, rock groups etc that inundate media have dabbled in drugs, drink,etc. And rather than scoff at them with derision and judgment, we fete them on a daily basis.

Avoiding fat people isn’t about health, it’s about Cool and un-cool.

My take on Cool is Diversity.

I don’t look to fashion magazines for advice on health, I look at them for fashion. We need to start looking beyond the simplistic and dig deeper. If you want to have a health debate, then let’s tackle mental health, which is the stimulus, more often than not, affecting s one’s physical health. If we start to include a major cross-section of our society within the revered pages of fashion magazines, fat women, emaciated women, women of colour, aging women, differently-abled women, small women, you name it - then we can turn the tide against the overwhelming sense so many women suffer from not being able to live up to this exceedingly stringent, highly unattainable beauty ethic we currently subscribe to.

- Velvet d'Amour 

 

all B/W images: steven meisel for vogue italia june 2011

LOVE in the time of dysmorphia

Frockwriter thought it seemed a little odd that Britain's Love magazine removed last Tuesday's shot of Australasian model Catherine McNeil from its Twitter feed. Originally published on the Condé Nast-owned magazine's TwitPic account (a photo hosting service connected to Twitter), together with the caption "Catherine McNeil is back!", the Tweet was nowhere to be found on Thursday. Coincidentally, earlier that day, we had published the original - apparently unretouched - series of digital shots of McNeil that were taken by McNeil's New York agency, Ford Models - and which had been supplied to Love earlier in the week. But while the shot slipped off Love's Twitter feed, the image had already been reposted by several web forums and blogs, including frockwriter and remains cached on Google images. Oh, and Love also neglected to remove it from the magazine's separate TwitPic feed. What's problematic about this shot? Could it have anything to do with the fact that a quick comparison of the two images suggests some Photoshop magic has been worked on McNeil's left arm? The version published by Love is on the left, above, with the original on the right. 

screen cap of LOVE magazine's twitpic

supplied by ford models

So, who retouched the image?

Difficult to say at this stage, given that neither Love editor Katie Grand nor Ford Models have responded to our communications. 

Just a reminder that McNeil, one of Australia's most high profile models, has been having a bit of a break from the modelling business for the past 12 months. According to Ford, however, McNeil is fit and high fashion-ready, having been "working really hard to get herself together. She's really determined". 

But apparently not sufficiently 'together' for Love's purposes. 

Clearly someone retouched the photo. If indeed it was Love, then of course by no stretch of the imagination would this be the only fashion magazine in the world to have manipulated an image to make a model or celebrity look thinner than she/he is in real life. It's the kind of endemic practice that has become a key focus of such charters and groups as Australia's National Advisory Group on Body Image, whose voluntary industry code of practice recommends the disclosure of all digital retouching. 

Meanwhile, Katie Grand's peers are dedicating more and more space to special body image-focussed editions. 

The June edition of Vogue Italia stars three plus-sized models and separately, Vogue Italia editor Franza Sozzani has launched a petition to combat pro-anorexia websites that encourage young women to be competitive about their body shape. The magazine claims to be attempting to promote healthy beauty standards and to help impress upon young women that being skinny does not equal being perfect.

Robyn Lawley covers Vogue Italia

steven meisel for vogue italia via bella model management

When Australian Robyn Lawley recently landed the cover of ELLE France's 'curvy' issue, frockwriter mentioned that she had just been shot for the June edition of another, even more prestigious European title by one of the biggest names in fashion photography. They don't come much bigger than Vogue Italia and Steven Meisel. Congratulations to Lawley, who appears on the June 2011 cover of Vogue Italia (above, far right) with two other plus-sized models, Tara Lynn and Candice Huffine. Lawley, an Australian size 14, is also prominently featured inside the issue, in the remainder of the Meisel-lensed cover story (see another shot, below), but also in an only-girl editorial shot by Pierpaulo Ferrari (see further down for three behind-the-scenes images from that shoot, taken by Lawley). Lawley has more high fashion gigs on the horizon, having just shot with Max Doyle back home in Australia.  

steven meisel for vogue italia via bella model management

“It [the Vogue cover] just makes the last nine years of my life all worth it" says Lawley's mother agent Chelsea Bonner, the director of plus-size specialist agency Bella Model Management. "I could drop dead right now and I’d be so happy. I don’t know how I'm ever going to top it. It’s just a complete validation of what I've been trying to say for the last nine years: that curves and high fashion do work. And given the same opportunities as any other model gets, the result is just as beautiful, just as amazing, just as glamorous. To be given that sort of opportunity and for Robyn to blow it out of the water like she has, it’s proof that it can be done and it should on on a regular basis". 

Regarding Lawley's legs akimbo pose on the Vogue cover, according to Bonner, Meisel asked Lawley to sit (words to the effect), "How you would sit if you were a really powerful person".  

As for the flak prompted by Bonner's comments on our last Lawley post in April - when Bonner said she has yet to meet a size 22 woman who is healthy -  she notes, "I thought it was interesting that I’m not allowed to have an opinion when Bella is completely my opinion. The whole business is my opinion of beauty and what works and doesn’t work and what the market wants. So if anyone should be allowed to have an opinion, it should be me. We did have a lot of controversy over that and even on our Facebook page. But we had doctors, nutritionists and psychologists writing in and every single one agreed with my statement". 

all three images: pierpaulo ferrari for vogue italia, BTS shot by robyn lawley

It is reportedly 11 years since Vogue Italia last featured a plus-size model on its cover - Sophie Dahl. 

But the body image issue appears to be gathering momentum at the high fashion title. 
 
In February last year, Vogue Italia launched a plus-size-dedicated microsite called Vogue Curvy.

Then in March this year, editor Franza Sozzani launched a petition to combat pro-anorexia websites. 

In a letter to readers on the Vogue Italia website, Sozzani noted [her bold type emphasis]: 

"I did some research and found that there are countless pro-anorexia websites and blogs that not only support the disorder, but also urge young people to be competitive about their “body shape”.

 

Vogue Italia, the magazine par excellence that deals with and promotes aesthetics and beauty, has decided to make use of its authority and its readers on the web (over one million of contacts per month), to battle against anorexia and collect signatures with the final goal of shutting such sites down.


Fashion has been always blamed as one of the culprits of anorexia, and our commitment is the proof that fashion is ready to get on the frontline and struggle against the disorder."

   

Underneath Sozzani's letter, Associazione Bulimia Anoressia founder Fabiola de Clerq added:

"It is of paramount importance to explain teenage girls that being skinny does not equal being perfect and to promote beauty standards which start from and are all about being healthy".

Frockwriter couldn't help chuckling after reading these mission statements. 

Ninety-nine percent of the time, of course, Vogue Italia's models are whippet-thin, many struggling to keep their weight down to satisfy the draconian requirements of the industry's top casting directors, photographers, designers, stylists and magazine editors.

And any model who dares put on a few pounds can expect to be shown the door. 

Myf Shepherd is back in the game

david jones AW11 backstage

Myf Shepherd was the new Australian modelling supernova of 2008. Scouted in February that year and famously snubbed by the producers of Australia’s Next Top Model, the 17 year-old went on to walk in more shows than any other model during her first Australian Fashion Week in May 2008, before heading off to the northern hemisphere show circuit four months later and walking in 51 shows in her first international season. The next season she walked in 62. Then followed campaigns for Gucci, Sonia Rykiel, Miu Miu and others. By September 2009, however, something was up. Following a blitz of publicity over her personal life – and an apparent weight gain - Shepherd was much less high profile during the Spring/Summer 2010 show season. Then came the announcement she would be taking a break from modelling to study set design at the University of NSW’s College of Fine Arts. In fact, as Shepherd reveals in this short interview that frockwriter recorded backstage at last month’s David Jones show in Sydney, she didn’t just intend to take a break from the business – she decided to quit it altogether. 

Fortunately for Shepherd’s fans, however, one year on she is back in the game.

Currently in Paris, she is in the midst of her first international show season in eighteen months. And what a confident re-entry she is making. 

Shepherd only joined the Fall/Winter 2011/2012 season in Milan, but with five days still to go, she has already walked in seven shows, alongside some of the biggest names in the modelling business: Angelo Marani, Sportmax, DSquared2, Anne Valérie Hash, Anthony Vaccarello, Gaspard Yurkievich and AV Vandervorst – opening the two latter shows. Update 07/03: Add to this list Sonia Rykiel, Vivienne Westwood, Kenzo and Céline.

sportmax FW11/12/style.com

Frockwriter: So how is the course going?

Myf Shepherd: Really good. I’m really enjoying it.

FW: Stage design?

MS: Well it’s just a design course. The first year pretty much they give you a taste of everything. And then you get to choose. You narrow it down each year. the second year you have three kind of main streams that you follow and then you get through and then you get two and you do one for the final year.

FW: So you’ve done one year. How many years is it?

MS: It’s four years. But I’m going to defer the next year and go back overseas.

FW: You had such an incredible start, really, didn’t you? You did all those shows at RAFW, then went straight to the OS shows and hit the ground running. I can imagine it was a bit insane.

MS: Pretty much. Yeah, well I was doing Year 12 at the same time so that was really intense, because it was like a fulltime job and fulltime school.

  

FW: So you wanted to take a break because it was a bit too much?

MS:  I wasn’t really ready for it. I don’t think I really appreciated it either. And now I miss it a lot and so I can see all of the good things that I had before and I want to go back.

FW: Were you at all worried that in stepping out of it, you might miss your chance? Modelling is an intensely competitive business and some people talk about striking while the iron’s hot, having the right look at the right moment etc…

MS: I don’t know. I’m really young and it’s not the end of the world if I don’t make it again or anything.

FW: Well you are stepping back into it now. But when you left, were you worried that it might be difficult getting back in?

MS: I didn’t want to get back in when I stopped. That’s why I got piercings and tattoos.

FW: You were rebelling against….the fashion industry?

MS: Yep. [It was like saying] It’s my face and I can do what I want to it.

FW: But there are lots of models with piercings and tattoos aren't there?

MS: Not eyebrow piercings.

FW: I mean Abbey has lots of piercings and tattoos. So does Catherine McNeil. So what have you done with those today – taken them out?

MS: Oh it’s hidden by my hair [lifts fringe].

  

FW: I guess it is a very regimented life.

MS: Yeah, there are a lot of people who control your appearance

FW: So you are going back tomorrow [Thursday]. What’s the plan?

MS: I’m flying tomorrow to Paris and then I’ve got a few direct bookings in Paris. I don’t know what they are. And then I’m going to go to Milan and do shows and go to Paris and do shows and then go where I’m needed.

FW: Are you looking forward to going back onto the frontline?

MS: Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I’ve missed it. I’ve been Facebook-stalking all of my friends who are at the New York shows at the moment and getting jealous. 

AF vandervorst FW1112/style.com

FW: So what’s been the best thing about the year off?

MF: I had an amazing year. I just had so much fun being a regular person and not a model.

FW: Did you find that people recognised you?

MS: No, not really. Not in Sydney. I don’t really ever get that in Sydney. In New York, all the time and especially anywhere during Fashion Week, because everyone’s kind of  on the lookout for models. But no, I don’t really get it in Sydney. There was one time at a café where I had a really strange experience, where a woman came over and asked my friend while I was in the bathroom, if I was Myf Shepherd. And my friend was like, ‘No, it’s not. Leave her alone’. And then the woman was like, ‘No, I know who that is – that’s Myf Shepherd. I’m going to wait here and talk to her when she comes back out of the bathroom’.   

FW: And so did she meet you?

MS: No my friend scared her off!

FW: Obviously many fashion blogs - including obviously this one - monitor what models do and talk them up. Often the mainstream press then pick the stories up. Does all the hype get a bit much when you’re starting out?

MS: If you read it, I guess. I don’t know. I think I was just a bundle of hype.

FW: A bundle of hype?

MS: I think that hype entirely just can really influence someone’s career.

FW: Well, modelling is like the stock market...

MS: Yeah. So... I feel like I had a lot of good hype when I started and that definitely helped me.

FW: How tough is the weight issue? Obviously it affects every model at that elite level. It must be really difficult.

MS: It is hard that you’ve got to look a certain way. And I’m still healthy. I went like... I stopped caring at all when I decided that I was going to take time off. Or when I decided that I was going to quit. And then when I decided that I wanted to start back up again I started watching what I was eating and exercising more. But it wasn’t at all a massive lifestyle change. It was all about mindset.

FW: So you actually quit?

MS: Yeah. I just wanted to go to uni. 

FW: When you finish your course, what are the plans then?

MS: I do want to do set design, or something like that. I would love to do set design for fashion shows. I find that so interesting. They have some amazing things over in Europe. 

FW: And there are some great production companies.

MS: On that Gucci campaign that I did I was talking to the set designer for an entire day. That was kind of around the time that I decided I was going to apply for uni. 

dsquared2 FW1112/style.com

FW: What did you miss most about modelling?

MS: I don’t know, there are lots of things. I miss transforming, that’s probably the major thing. 

FW: You mean with the photoshoots, the hair and makeup etc…

MS: Yes. 

FW: What was the highlight?

MS: There were way too many good times.

FW: Favourite shoot, favourite photographer?

MS: I have too many… I’ve got too many friends who are photographers and I don’t want to offend anyone by saying. 

FW: But that’s what you miss the most – the theatrical side?

MS: Yeah, I really, really enjoy becoming a character. 

FW: For any young girls in your position at RAFW, who have never been outside Australia and who all of a sudden get picked up and thrown into it like you were, what’s your advice to them?

MS: [And become] the next big thing? 

FW: Yes – having been through it all, what’s your advice... having stepped out of it to get some perspective and going back into it now?

MS: Don’t take it too seriously.

 

The big league: H&M launches a plus size collection for Spring

Karl Lagerfeld severed ties with H&M in part because the company wanted to produce his collection in large sizes, while he was reportedly only interested in designing “fashion for slender and slim people”. But it seems the Swedish fast fashion behemoth hasn’t let this rain on its plus size parade. From early March, H&M will offer a 20-unit capsule collection called, simply, Inclusive, which will be available in sizes 32-54 and sold exclusively online (these would appear to be Swedish sizes, which equate to an Australian 6-28). Many thanks to Runway Revolution for the headsup. Why online only? In 2008, when Australian designer Leona Edmiston decided to double her size range to a 24, coincidentally she also only offered the larger sizes online, after her research indicated that many larger women felt uncomfortable in boutiques. 

After frockwriter (in her previous incarnation as Fully Chic) opened up what would become a rather heated discussion on the subject, others added in that many larger women in fact feel unwelcome in mainstream fashion boutiques. 

Considering that so many fashion boutiques appear not to have much stock over a size 10, is that so very surprising? 

So far H&M appears only to be shipping to Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Swedish Finland and the UK, but we have a hunch they may be about to be inundated with global enquiries. 

The accompanying campaign features plus size Australian model Robyn Lawley (second from the top).  

Great initiative. Adorable dresses. Not before time.

all images: H&M

The lovely bones: Anna Lundgaard

nick kelly/velour via noir facade

 

Frockwriter recently launched a new series dedicated to images of extreme thinness that are promoted by the fashion industry. Whether these are the fruit of contrived poses in which the models have been art directed, crafty Photoshop work or else that is exactly what the models in question look like, we thought it was worth sharing a few of those shots that some publishers green light, which prompt others to do a double take. While this hilarious shot of Dane Anna Lundgaard from the latest issue of Velour magazine is clearly a fantasy concept, we couldn't help pondering its inescapable irony against the backdrop of the skinny model debate. One assumes it may be deliberate satire. Lensed by Brit Nick Kelly and styled by Alexia Somerville, it's part of an editorial called 'Heroes or Villains' that is based on the cartoon superhero world. And quite possibly inspired by Skeletor and Scare Glow, the two skeletal villains of Mattel's Masters of the Universe cartoon franchise. Head to Noir Facade to see the rest of the series.

Tom Ford recommends a head job with that boob job

tom ford for vogue paris via fashion_screen

In the much-hyped, Tom Ford-edited December 2010 edition of Vogue Paris, which is out tomorrow, Ford tackles the subject of cosmetic surgery with an eight page editorial called La Panthère ose (which translates as “the panther dares” - a play on the French version of the film title The Pink Panther). Starring the world’s most high profile plus size model Crystal Renn, the editorial was shot by Ford and styled by editor in chief Carine Roitfeld. Yes, cosmetic surgery makes an interesting editorial backdrop for any fashion magazine, considering that such magazines stand accused of only ever showcasing unrealistic – and frequently digitally enhanced – images of female “perfection” that prompt feelings of inadequacy in “normal” women and lead them to eating disorders and cosmetic surgery. But it is not the first time this has been done. The July 2005 edition of Vogue Italia featured an 80-page cover story by Steven Meisel called Makeover Madness. Shot inside a medical equipment rental facility and a suite at the St Regis, the story depicted Linda Evangelista and eight other models before, "during" and after staged procedures (complete with fake blood). It's interesting to compare the two editorials. 

The 2005 story (here) depicts nose jobs, breast augmentations, liposuction and blepharoplasty or eyelid surgery, male doctors and female nurses. 

The 2010 version (above and below) depicts exactly the same procedures, minus liposuction - and two male attendants in the place of the doctors and nurses. 

One could speculate that Vogue Paris deliberately omitted liposuction from this story because of the body image debate that has been raging since 2006, following the deaths of several models from eating disorder-related conditions. And it would defeat the purpose, surely, of having a plus-size model in the editorial? Unless that's a shadow on Renn's leg in image four, however, we would put money on her thigh having been airbrushed by the magazine. 

Renn has revealed that she wore a prosthetic mask in some pictures – presumably those showing her with grotesquely overinflated lips and acutely chiselled cheekbones. The kind of cheekbones frockwriter has spotted on more than one high profile twentysomething model.

There is one interesting addition to Ford’s cosmetic surgery story: sex.

In one shot, Renn's character appears to be on the receiving end of some oral pleasure from one model - with her left arm dangled around a second male model, who looks barely legal - while casually sipping Coke from a straw in one hand and channel surfing with the other.

Many will no doubt find Ford’s post-op cunnilingus proposition - which all looks very consensual, save for the fact that the patient requires assistance to walk and shower and would most likely be on heavy duty painkillers - funny. The score of women who claim to have been indecently assaulted by cosmetic/plastic surgeons while under sedation probably won't be amongst those laughing. Nor indeed, any date rape victims.

Another image in the series (second from the end) is ambiguous. Renn is lying in the lap of one model, who is holding an ice pack to her forehead, while the other leans over her suggestively. The latter is holding her waist with one hand, while "administering" Chanel No 5 - either orally or perhaps as a substitute for an Amyl Nitrate "popper", a hugely popular drug in the gay mens' scene.  
 
Ford aims to be controversial. After all, he is in the process of making his big comeback in women’s fashion. Besides, he has never shied from controversy, either with the advertising imagery for Gucci or more recently, through the advertising campaigns for his own brand, notably the mens’ fragrance campaign shot by mate Terry Richardson. The duo team up again in this issue of Vogue Paris in a western-themed editorial called (what else?) Pussy Western, starring Renn once again, opposite Abbey Lee Kershaw and Eniko Mihalik.  

Interestingly, Ford's cosmetic surgery story coincides with the publication of The Daily Beast’s roundup of some of the new, far less invasive cosmetic surgery procedures that are currently being hailed by various US cosmetic and plastic surgeons as having "revolutionised" their practices.

They include skin resurfacing machines that some claim have eliminated the need for upper and lower eyelid surgery and fillers that have reportedly proven to be so effective they are replacing some nose jobs and the traditional facelift – with one plastic surgeon describing the latter as “an outdated insane operation”.

all images: tom ford for vogue paris via fashion_screen