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The big girls are taking over. PA-POW! That's all I have to say about that! V Magazine's size issue hits stands today and should carry a warning label that says "Dangerous Curves Ahead." There's always so much talk in the fashion industry about using "real looking women" in magazines, and in past attempts I have to say that most publications have failed. It makes me laugh to imagine Anna Wintour, for instance, meeting with the Voguettes and picking out a "big girl": "I can see her when she turns sideways; must be what they want." But, V has a good sized selection. The ladies in the issue, especially in Solve Sundsbo's editorial, are vuluptous and vampy and curvy indeed.

As a woman who has struggled with her weight and has done battle with a eating issues her whole life, I can't explain the feeling of validation that comes from seeing women who kind of, sort of, maybe a little bit, look something like me and my body. This feels especially good coming from an industry that I love so much, and that has been so unified in its acceptance of nothing but boniness for so long. I don't blame the industry for my own image issues, but seeing beautiful bodies in glossy pages helps me feel good and sexy and PA POW myself. Thanks V! You done good.

Black and True Blue

With Madonna's Herb Ritts-shot True Blue cover as a reference point, Cameron Diaz does the cover of V Magazine and makes Mert, Marcus, and V Mag look all edgy and relevant again. Painted on tats? A corset of electrical tape? Some waders, and cone boobs? I'm liking it.

Madge's inspirational true blueness:


Madonna is the eternal pop culture godmama. More than ever, I see her as a survivor. She's still here, still doing her thing, still a reference point for cool. I say she's got even more in her. Let's see it...

Drawn Together

Artist Marlene McCarty has been using the effect of transparent clothing in her billboard-sized pen and pencil drawings for years. Mostly the sheerness has been a way for her to explore the burgeoning, taboo sexuality of her young female subjects--all of whom are notorious criminals. McCarty rips their stories from newspapers and court records and turns them into disturbing works of art, marked by enticing, pretty-girl portraits accompanied by detailed textual accounts of the subjects' vile crimes. For their latest issue, V Magazine presents works commissioned by curator Dominic Sidhu that marry McCarty's transparent style with Rodarte's sheer, webbed, layered dresses. The resulting drawings of a pair of Rodarte-decked women becoming one with each other and their dresses are at once unnerving and beautiful.

View the series in the latest issue of V Magazine on stands now (with Sasha Fierce on the cover!), or check them out on V's site.

Behind the Seams: "Let There Be Light"

Nick Knight is using his interactive, multi-media fashion-as-art-project website ShowStudio.com to give you a sneak peek into his creative process. For the rest of the day and the next two to follow, you can watch model Lilly Donaldson do her thing while Mr. Knight captures it on film for an editorial piece headed for V Magazine's February issue. The feature is called "Let There Be Light" and it certainly sheds some on a day in the life of Knight.

There will be streaming audio and video, live twitter updates, and galleries of unretouched photos fresh from the camera. You won't miss a minute of the action, and if you do just check back at the end of each day (mind the London time difference) and view the highlight reels.