It is the most special number of Permanent Food . Not least that it doesn't have a number. Maurizio Cattelan and Paola Manfrin were invited by Mariuccia Casadio, the art director of Vogue Italia, to produce a supplement to the June 2003 issue. Above are the front and back covers. A lionness in a tiara and Linda Evangelista in a hat that goes off the page.

Another balancing act. Fischli Weiss's Natural Grace and LInda again. The Fischli Weiss photo-sculpture perfectly represents Permanent Food Vogue Italia . An apple in an egg cup at its base: a collection of related items held together in some form of suspended disbelief: a sculpture that only exists as a photograph. You know what that is, don't you? Postmodernism. Again.

Heavy on the eye liner. Nan Goldin's left hand page is drawn from real life but also happens to look more like an invented fashion story than Meisel's invented fashion story on the right. Meisel, of course, would leap frog reality himself in just a few years, producing both the Hollywood Story and Makeover Madness issues of Vogue Italia in 2005. See more of this week's superbook on this link. And if you want it... click.

And there are many, many pages where no juxtaposition occurs. Not that they couldn't, but that they wouldn't. These are complete pictures by Meisel, Lindbergh and Weber (including the Coppolas above) that are already so loaded with meaning and reference and natural grace as to be quite untouchable. It is to Cattelan's great credit that he leaves the scissors aside for much of the book and such reserve earns him a new entry in our postmodern top ten!

JAMES WINES AND SITE