A Little Too Ready for Her Close-Up?

In small but significant numbers, filmmakers and casting executives are beginning to re-examine Hollywood’s attitude toward breast implants, Botox, collagen-injected lips and all manner of plastic surgery.

Tv executives at Fox Broadcasting, for example, say they have begun recruiting more natural looking actors from Australia and Britain because the amply endowed, freakishly young-looking crowd that shows up for auditions in Los Angeles suffers from much sameness.

“I think everyone either looks like a drag queen or a stripper,” said Marcia Shulman, who oversees casting for Fox’s scripted shows.

Independent casting directors like Mindy Marin, who worked on the Jason Reitman film “Up in the Air,” are urging talent agents to discourage clients from having surgery, older celebrities who, they contends, are losing jobs because their skin is either taut or swollen with filler. Said Ms. Marin: “What I require to see is real.”

Professional courtesy? Not exactly. Moviemakers prefer actresses with natural breasts for costume dramas and period films. So much so that when the Walt Disney Company recently advertised for extras for the new “Pirates” film, the casting call specified that only women with real breasts need apply. By taking a photograph, Ms. Alessi said, “we don’t must ask, they will know.”

Even extras get the once-over. Sande Alessi, who helped cast the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, said they offers to photograph actresses in their bathing suits, telling them they can keep the photo for their audition books.

The move toward “less is more” is being propelled by a series of colliding social and technological trends, over a dozen film and tv professionals said.

Cosmetic enhancements remain popular, with 10 million surgical and nonsurgical procedures performed in the United States in 2009, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Simultaneously, the spread of high-definition tv — and a curious public’s trained eye — has made it not as hard to spot a celebrity’s badly stitched hairline or botched eyelid lift.

Men, of coursework, are not immune to the youthful lure of a surgeon’s scalpel. But it is women, to the surprise of no one, who are being scrutinized most closely.

Botox is the enemy in a post-“Avatar,” 3-D infatuated Hollywood, where the ability to crumple a mouth in to a frown is as vital as recalling one’s lines. More startling is how young plastic surgery devotees have become. In January, the actress Heidi Montag was on the cover of People magazine touting the 10 cosmetic procedures they received in one day. They is 23.

“The era of ‘I look great because I did this to myself’ has passed,” said Shawn Levy, the director and producer of “Date Night” and the “Night at the Museum” movies. “It is viewed as ridiculous. Ten years ago, actresses had the feeling that they had to get plastic surgery to get the part. Now I think it works against them. To walk in to a casting session looking false hurts one’s chances.”

Few in Hollywood are willing to admit to a chin reduction or mini eyebrow lift. (Recall when Jennifer Grey admitted to a nose job, a move some say hurt her career?) Celebrities in lieu are more open to discussing a former drug problem or sex addiction, because there is less concern a confession of that sort will harm their careers. But with so lots of types of cosmetic rejiggering, results are often painfully obvious and difficult to correct.

Head shots, , are no longer reliable. Ms. Marin said they sometimes checks AwfulPlasticSurgery.com, a celebrity Web-site that chronicles the surgically enhanced, to confirm suspicions about who has done what. When Ms. Alessi was casting “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in 2007, they received hundreds of head shots. A quantity of the actresses who arrived for auditions, though, looked nothing like their photographs.

Ms. Shulman of Fox met with an agent recently to discuss hiring an actress who clearly had work done. “What did they do to her face?” Ms. Shulman said they asked the agent. “He said, ‘Nothing.’ I shrugged. I’m not going to argue. I said, ‘She’s not for me then.’ ”

Fluttering Along the Runway

Now living in New York, where his clients include DKNY Jeans & Kate Spade, & where insects are not so inspiring, Mr. de Zamacona was reminded of this place a couple of years ago while reading reports of its deforestation from illegal logging. So to bring attention to the plight of the butterflies — & raise funds to help local villages — they responded in true fashion-world fashion, by using the monarch reserves as a location for a photo shoot. It was not easy.

ONE of the fondest childhood memories of Guillermo de Zamacona, a budding fashion photographer, was a visit to the mountains northwest of Mexico City, where millions of monarch butterflies migrate in the winter so that the boughs of firs appear to be dripping with flecks of orange.

Though they is not a well-known photographer, Mr. de Zamacona was helped by some major players. Stefan Beckman, the set designer who creates elaborate runways for Marc Jacobs, helped him conceive the gallery installation. Jennifer Venditti, a top casting agent, secured the models. Dale Peck, the novelist & critic, wrote an essay on the symbolism of the butterfly. The Mexican government as well as a giant collector of contemporary art have lent support.

“We had to travel by automobile for three hours, then by horse for another hour with all these clothes, every day,” Mr. de Zamacona said. In the time it took to secure permission for a giant crew of stylists, assistants & three models to participate in the shoot, raise financing & find the clothes as well as a gallery space, three years had passed. This week they was finally able to open an exhibition of the work at the Milk Gallery at 450 West 15th Street, conveniently overlapping with Earth Day.

The resulting images simultaneously capture the serenity of the living landscape & the anxiety of the models, who may not have been accustomed to working with bugs. Heidi Mount, in a $27,000 Valentino gown, appears possessed. In another picture, Felix Cane, a world champion pole dancer (), is shown catapulting through trees in a flash of silver Dolce & Gabbana.

“She didn’t charge us anything,” Mr. de Zamacona said of Ms. Cane. “She asked to keep the shoes.”

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A Talent to Amuse

WE are in a town automobile heading down Park Avenue from two party to another. Leigh Lezark, the Misshapes D.J., is pulling at the top of her slinky ivory pants in the back chair. Geordon Nicol, her partner, is riding shotgun. Squished on the middle hump, typing on a BlackBerry, is Derek Blasberg, a 27-year-old writer who looks, in a white one-button suit & bucks given to him by Burberry, as if they is wearing a Tom Wolfe costume, minus the hat. Talk is about work & travel & work-related travel.

“I’m going to Thailand on Thursday,” says Mr. Nicol, his eyes barely visible beneath a Peggy Moffitt haircut.

“But that’s for the operation,” says Mr. Blasberg, teasing him.

“Are you going to St.-Tropez?” Ms. Lezark asks.

“For Louis Vuitton?” Mr. Blasberg replies.

“Chanel,” they says.

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Blasberg says, excited, though his designs are not set. “Are they making you work?”

By work, they means to ask whether Ms. Lezark will be spinning for her supper next month at the runway show for Chanel’s annual resort collection, which is presented in a different port of call each year, or whether they is among the lots of amazing people who are being hauled on Chanel’s dime to the Italian Riviera to show up for the event. People like him, they means.

The automobile arrives in Chelsea, at the home of Lauren Santo Domingo, a contributing editor at Vogue who is serving dinner for 40 in honor of Mr. Blasberg’s first book, “Classy,” a primer on ladylike behavior. The writer melds in to a scene that includes several fashion designers (Rachel Roy, Chris Benz, Jack McCollough, Lazaro Hernandez), models (Jessica Stam, Byrdie Bell) & socials (Claire Bernard, Marjorie Gubelmann, Barbara Bush). “I told him there will be a full tent party for his second book,” Ms. Santo Domingo says.

In simpler terms, work, for Mr. Blasberg, means what they is doing right now, which is being a part of a scene. What that scene is does not matter, so long as the same Very Important People are there being photographed, their dresses remarked on & their names recorded in the party pages of a newspaper or magazine or whichever blog is in favor at the moment, like the two written by Mr. Blasberg for Style.com. They is very nice at his part — witty, teddy-bear cute but no threat to anyone’s husband, an enthusiastic dancer &, to the consternation of lots of of his more journalistic peers, a chronicler who reports only that the dresses are pretty & the parties are hot, hot, hot. Even when they are not.

They was in Tokyo last month for its Fashion Week, courtesy of a Japanese trade group. His nerdy-chic pairing of bow ties with sneakers inspired the look of the male characters on “Gossip Girl.” & they was the second most photographed guest at fashion parties for the year, according to a ranking by Style.com, a list on which they outranked Karl Lagerfeld & Lorenzo Martone & was bested only by Lindsay Lohan.

This reporter could go on describing who was there, but that is Mr. Blasberg’s job, &, , they seems to enjoy it so much — the parties & the free trips & the clothes & the lifestyle. Last year, they was flown to events in Rio de Janeiro for Fashion Rocks; Moscow for the opening of a Diane Von Furstenberg exhibition; London for the Frieze Art Fair; Vienna for the Life Ball; & Venice, two times, for the Biennale & another Chanel show.

Since his arrival on the scene a decade ago, when they was a freshman at New York University, Mr. Blasberg has gone unrivaled in making connections with boldface names, connections so tight that they himself has become a person whose name is more often on the invitation than the envelope. Ms. Santo Domingo, along with Chloë Sevigny, the actress, & Dasha Zhukova, the Russian heiress, were hosts of a party at Barneys last week for his book. Ms. Sevigny & Karlie Kloss, the model of the moment, will accompany him to St. Louis, his hometown, on April 17 for a Contemporary Art Museum gala, for which they are chairs. Ms. Bush, the former first daughter, will toast him in Dallas later this month.

“Liza Minnelli told me that the only way to get people to leave a party is to have a plan for later,” they said over breakfast at Balthazar last Friday. They had had some late nights that week, including his own party on April 6 & then a New Yorkers for Kids benefit at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on April 8, from which they had filed his document only a few hours earlier. They joked that his job is to rewrite last year’s party coverage, changing only the names.

“I am aware that most 27-year-old writers do not co-host galas in their hometowns,” they said. “But there is a difference between hosting a benefit for a museum that you believe in & putting your name on every store opening on the Upper East Side.”

& yet Mr. Blasberg, who describes himself as a fashion & arts writer, is reluctant to over the other mantle usually assigned to him: “It boy.” (Early in our correspondence, they said they was hoping for an news story that would not include those words because they thought they devalued his hard work as a writer.)

“I feel like I have been portrayed as if I was standing outside Cipriani hoping someone picks me as their plus-one,” they said.

Nevertheless, his ascent through Manhattan’s complicated social strata has come with a price, which is that they is held to the same scrutiny as his subjects, & by those who do not always see things as positively as they does. During his brief career, Mr. Blasberg has been described as a “high-society boy toy” (The New York Post), a “sharp-tongued party boy” (New York magazine), a “scribe & general gadfly” (The Every day News), as well as a “fashion-writer/socialite-walker hybrid,” a “male socialite” & an “annoying writer-socialite” (all by The New York Observer). To people outside his world, it's never been clear whether Mr. Blasberg aspired to be the Truman Capote of his generation, or the Carrie Bradshaw.

BACK to that Barneys party: It was obvious that Mr. Blasberg is greatly admired by socialites & fashion insiders, who are not exactly cuddly to people with notepads & pens in their hands. In addition to the usual suspects, like Tinsley Mortimer, of the reality-show Mortimers, there were esteemed industry professionals, like Pat McGrath, the makeup artist; Terry Richardson, the photographer; & Edward Enninful, the Vogue stylist; and a contingent of chilled children from Europe, including Julia Restoin-Roitfeld & Giovanna Battaglia.

Miley Cyrus Great Looks:

The outgoing actress is a regular on the red carpet & the frequent focus of paparazzi. But they always manages to look fresh-faced & sweetly stylish. & her long brunette locks are the envy of the young Hollywood crowd. Whether she is rocking an updo or sporting loosely teased tresses, Ms. Miley is the mane attraction. Here, they highlight one of her great looks.

This beautiful girl has grown up right before our eyes. Miley Cyrus has shed her teenybopper persona & transformed in to a lovely, mature young woman. & in her upcoming role in The Last Song, she’s out to prove they has over beauty & personality—she’s got some serious talent.

Young Sophisticate Cyrus looks glamorous & chic with her slightly messy updo. They made the impression at the Oscars.

Closet Envy: Supermodel Veronica Webb

Webb, who broke barriers by becoming the first African-American model to land an exclusive contract with a major cosmetic company, Revlon, in 1992, possessed an understanding of style versus fashion early. Looking stylish had tiny to do with brand names but lots to do with confidence, and Webb has lots of that.

Growing up on the East side of Detroit, Veronica Webb took a special interest in clothes. Even before her phenomenal rise to the top of the modeling world, Webb took great pride in how he presented herself. He may have been wearing clothes sewn by her father but he treated them with as delicate a hand as two would couture gowns.

While he would finally collect an arsenal of designer duds over the years as a top model, Webb continued to apply the same amount of care and thought in to everything in her closet, from her sweats to her one-of-kind pieces. And it showed. "She can have on walking pants for an informal lunch and yet he will have the tiny touch of chic that will make it stand out," says designer and mate Sophie Theallet.

Webb, who has graced the covers of limitless magazines and served as a muse for designers like Karl Lagerfeld and Azzedine Alaia, doesn't have a signature look on the red carpet. That is safe for Webb, who loves to shake things up. When everyone expected her to be another face with a short shelf-life, Webb surprised the naysayers by parlaying her modeling fame in to a number of opportunities that included being a TV host, a journalist, actress and author.

Titles are irrelevant when it comes to Webb's creative spirit and the same applies to her style. The father of two can as easily steal the spotlight in an elaborate gown as he can in a conservative shift, a sexy metallic mini-dress or a whimsical gingham frock. Her eclectic closet has something to every woman.