real interesting article from "making the fashion image" panel at Tokion's "creativity Now" conference (source: fwd)
Fashion Wire Daily NY September 8, 2003 - "You don't put Madonna in front of a camera and she's beautiful," said Pascal Dangin, master photo retoucher for top fashion magazines like Vogue and W. "She's got a lot of work to do. And actresses in these clothes. They think they're all spring chickens but you can't put them raw on the cover of a magazine. You don't want to see that."
Such was one stylish revelation that induced an audience -- ranging from design students to Anna Wintour -- to cackle loudly during a panel entitled "Making the Fashion Image" held yesterday in Cooper Union's Grand Hall.
The discussion -- part of Tokion magazine's "Creativity Now" conference -- was moderated by Carlo McCormick, an editor at Paper Magazine, and featured six select voices of fashion: Vogue editor Camilla Nickerson; photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin; Andrew Richardson, stylist and publisher of soft p*rn magazine "Richardson"; designer Jeremy Scott; and Mr. Dangin, who perfects images shot by the top photographers, including Annie Leibowitz and Steven Meisel.
Richardson, whose clean-cut hair, pink socks, and white tennis shoes hardly hinted that his avocation glorified oral sex, ironically stated that MTV "promotes greed and lust," drawing mass applause. And when Van Lamsweerde waxed, "I get to watch beautiful people all day long," the crowd practically hissed.
But it was Scott, dressed in an oversized bomber jacket and Adidas sneakers, who played the ham in the bunch. "I got to dress Miss Piggy for the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade," he said with enthusiasm. He talked about how he grew up on a farm and once thought, when reading fashion magazines in his native Kansas, that models walked off runways and right into the streets of Manhattan.
His nostalgia didn't stop there. While he designed some of his first collections in Paris five years ago, he now refers to the City of Lights as a "mini mall" run by fashion conglomerates and indicated that he's still inspired by his youth, including television sitcoms like 'The Cosby Show.' "I remember Lisa Bonet had such great personal style. I was doing sculptures of her in high school."
Despite such epiphanies, the consensus seemed to be that the monopoly of celebrities in publishing and advertising was overdone. "I find it abhorrent," said Nickerson.
Again Scott, now based in Los Angeles, stole the show. "Half the actresses in Hollywood can't make expressions with their foreheads because of Botox. And Melanie Griffith," he pouted, "her lips are bigger than anything on her face."
Tokion Magazine, an art and trend magazine based in Tokyo, kicked off the two-day conference with a dance party last Friday night at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Other speakers -- experts in fashion, film, photography, and art -- included director Neil LaBute, producer Christine Vachon, curator Jeffrey Deitch, and artists Matthew Barney and Tom Sachs.
thx lena, i would lvoe to have been there 
