What do you think of Agyness Deyn’s new haircut? It definitely flipped me at first sight, but she is sporting an interesting androgynous look that editorials will love. And it all explains this tweet from yesterday that sort of intrigued me:

The downtown grungy model is playing street punk at downtown Saint Mark’s Place (NYC) for this fingerlicking editorial shot by Alasdair McLellan. The images of this photoshoot will be released in the September issue of V Magazine.

Covers for the month of September keep coming and adding some fine pieces in the collection. Numero China is launching by the end of the month its first issue with killer content and two catchy covers. Featuring the #1 national model, Liu Wen is striking the pose on black & white wearing an explosive Dior Haute Couture floral dress and in a more local angle for the second cover (wearing a silky and certainly very expensive dress I can’t identify).

In addition, two more covers. One from Harper’s Bazaar Spain playing classic with an obvious inspiration from the 60’s that I absolutely adore (must be my current mood), and the second from Vogue Russia featuring local doll Natalia Vodianova. I can’t stop thinking that she has been continually looking young and cool since her very first editorial, and certainly not ready to retire.

EDIT: Added the cover of Numéro France September 2010 with Natasha Poly by Karl Lagerfeld

See the first part of the Best Covers of The September Issue.

If you have watched the documentary “The September Issue” last year, thanks to the fashion Empress and EIC Anna Wintour, you probably already know every steps it takes to create the iconic and every women’s most expected issue of their favorite glossy magazine. Not only it takes drama in Wintour’s office and André Leon Talley to start his weight loss diet, but it’s also 6 months of sweat and tears, lots of unpaid interns sacrificed on the altar of Fashion, assistants burnt out, hours in the pre-prod room, hours in the post-prod room, gazillions of $ spent, months of travels around the world and around the clock, etc.

Ok, I may be exaggerating a bit too much. I must say, for many in this industry it’s like giving birth to a baby, a big baby of 500 more pages made of glossy paper and just speaking Fashion. Fascinating. Since a child, I’ve always been fascinated by Fashion magazines, flipping the pages and staying amazed by the artistic pictures in the second part of the issue. Moved by the creativity it takes to design these clothes but also the work of the photographers to create the iconic picture each is looking for. But the September issue is not the result of an industry’s tradition, it has been created years ago by Vogue as a pure marketing tool to attract more sales and more advertisers. And now, all the publications are fighting to win the biggest revenue race, it’s like a way to stay “My magazine is the best out here”. So what’s the ingredient to make it a “Hit”? Of course the cover. No matter what the content is, customers will buy the cover. And that’s the reason why most of the time we see the biggest stars of the current buzz – the ones that are the most “bankable” as we like to say. Nonetheless, even if this September issue tradition is irrelevant in my opinion, it does sometimes reveal quite some trends and good surprises you would not expect.

After spending an hour collecting all the most interesting covers of this month, here is my top 5 of the best September issue covers:

#5: Musically, Lady Gaga is unquestionably talented, but I’ve never believed the pop singer was legit in the fashion world despite her extravagance and curiosity to experiment. On the other hand, Nick Knight did an amazing job to create a cover that will make you feel like obtaining a candy box.

Vanity Fair US & UK September 2010 Lady Gaga By Nick Knight

#4: Simply chic. Greg Kadel did a great job at immortalizing the model Constance Jablonski doing the perfect wink. This cover has a potential to be iconic.

Vogue Germany September 2010 Constance Jablonski by Greg Kadel

#3: Kate Moss is still one of – or even- the best model even after 20 years in the industry. This is my third best cover for, actually, being the only one to talk about trends. And just the idea of Kate Moss being naked underneath a Burberry military-trench is outrageously sexy.

Vogue UK September 2010 Kate Moss by Patrick Demarchelier

#2: This could have been a flop, but it turns out so well that it’s second best cover. Conceptually “risqué”, this cover is just another proof that Sweden is becoming more and more influential in the industry.

Elle Sweden September 2010 Frida Gustavsson by Andreas Sjodin

#1: Despite the blatant marketing stunt. These 3 covers are simply grandiose.

i-D cover Kate Moss September 2010

i-D Cover Lady Gaga September 2010

i-D cover Naomi Campbell September 2010

H&M Divided Collection F/W 2010

Is it acceptable for major clothing companies to replicate high-end runway clothes to make them highly accessible to 99% of the population? Well, I truly don’t have the answer even though I will always be defending the designer’s creations and the uniqueness of their design. So in this wave of new Fall Winter ad campaigns to prepare the assiduous consumers to know the who-what-where of the next fashion trends. Some mass-market brands such as H&M don’t get ashamed to blatantly reproduce the Givenchy Spring/Summer 2010 collection to spread all-over the press the campaign for the new H&M F/W Divided collection.

Givenchy S/S 2010

A collection that is purely a cheap version of what made Tisci popular last season. I’m not in Riccardo Tisci’s mind to understand what he could think of this watered-down version his Givenchy collection. But this could be a great debate about who is fashion aimed at? And whether or not designers should design for two types of consumers versus being ripped off by retail stores?

So what could be possible hotter than the current heatwave striking New York City and many other cities in the world? 102 degrees Fahrenheit will feel just as chills after viewing the upcoming #66 issue by V Magazine. Programmed to be launched on July 8th, V Magazine is releasing two explosive editorials as part of their Sexy Body Issue. “Spanish Bombshells” and “Pinup Girls”, shot respectively by Txema Yeste and Franck de Blase, feature an army of pin-ups including Ana Beatriz, Hilary Rhoda, Bette Frank, Kim Cloutier, Tori Praver, Candice Swanepoel and Hilary Rhoda. Clothes are accidentally used, since “the more skin, the better” prevails.

Click each image to zoom.

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This editorial from the June issue of the French Vogue is Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci way to celebrate her new coup de foudre with female hip-hop singer Ciara. After 5 years at the head of the French design house, Riccardo still has the eye to find his muses. Away from her usual image of a popular R&B singer, Ciara looks fantastic and poses confidently as if her modeling career had not started just for this shoot. The editorial is ferociously good and, as usual when directed by Riccardo Tisci himself, it inhibits his sexy, dark and gothic vision. You won’t have any doubt that Ciara can fulfill her role for the French house after watching her reinventing the French Crazy Horse in the music video Love Sex Magic.

Malgosia Bela for Self-Service #32

This month, I had promised myself to stay away from my newsstand. The source of my fanatical addiction to fashion magazines. The place where I could spend hundreds of dollars buying magazines to buildup my crazy collection of editorials on glossy paper. Nonetheless, I must admit I am pretty proud of this collection and that one day will be (hopefully) super useful. Hello Vogue, Elle, Purple, i-D et al. here comes a new friend. The temptation was too hard and finally grabbed a copy of the latest Spring issue from Self-Service magazine. This is when I inadvertently fell in love for a few photos of Malgosia Bela and Anna Selezneva making appearances in a stunning editoral artwork and the beautiful Carmen Kass dressed in the hottest clothes of the season. This is all shot by photographer/editor-chief/creative director of Self Service magazine Ezra Petronio. Even though the style and artwork reminds me of the lookbook signature-style of photography Juergen Teller, I am a total sucker for this. At the same time I could not resist either to the most beautiful cheekbones in the industry that has Anna Selezneva.

Anna Selezneva for Self-Service #32

Carmen Kass for Self-Service #32

For their upcoming issue #65, V Magazine generously sent me sneak previews of some of their new editorials. The photoshoot by monopolistic Terry Richardson and friends Miranda Kerr, Bar Refaeli and Raquel Zimmermann will probably drive you to get lost on Paradise Island with attractive sirens wearing the latest swimsuit of the season. Or this Alexander McQueen-esque editorial will bring you some chills with the sight of Dafne Cejas playing a dramatic widows in the Buenos Aires underworld wearing face-covering dresses from the pre-fall collections. You will easily recognize the Chanel Paris-Shanghai black gown and the Givenchy sheer tulle blouse. It feels good to see something a bit different these days when most of the editorials mostly look alike.

For their latest issue, Vogue Italia picked model and icon Amber Valletta to take over their cover in a classical 90’s-inspired photo composed by photographer Steven Meisel. Even though this issue is full of good surprises like the ghostly and romantic “A white story” by Paolo Roversi, the main editorial directed by Steven Meisel is quite interesting yet intriguing to explore. This photoshoot is capturing a casting of superstars led by Amber Valletta and followed by Angela Lindvall, Joan Smalls, Lara Stone, Freja Beha Erichsen, Giedre Dukauskaite, Gwen Loos, Jac Jagaciak and Abbey Lee Kershaw in dead nature-like scenes. The title says it all, the stylist played with the proportions by selecting prep-school girl outfits in their shortest dimensions, most of the pieces coming from the Spring/Summer runways. But going all-out with the craziest and latest hairdos created by famous hairstylist Guido Palau. Some hairstyles were recognizable like the insane and greasy hairs from Alexander Wang or the puffy/voluminous mess from Louis Vuitton. With such distracting emphasis, it made the editorial quite interesting (and probably saved it from flatness). If you are curious by nature, take a look a the backstage video.

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The wild girls of LA-based clothing brand Wildfox are back with a trashy-college-girls-gone-wild editorial shot by Marc The Cobrasnake, and featuring models Tallulah Morton and Erika Braukis. Wearing denim cut-offs, cropped sexy tops and a good selection of infamous sexy cutout pieces, this is the hottest editorial reenacting a sexy Spring Break weekend you’ll only dream in your craziest fantasy. As usual, what I appreciate the most from any Wildfox photoshoots are that sexy rockstar attitude and vintage atmostphere that come blended into the clothes and its perfect casting. I think if you want to bring a bit of sexiness into your closet, Wildfox is the right choice and Cobrasnake’s grand’pa won’t disagree (the photoshoot was done in his house).

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