Greetings, and welcome to my new blog. Here, you’ll find all the latest news from the Blackbook fashion desk— behind the scenes coverage from our shoots, inspirations, obsessions, and just about anything else I feel like rambling on about because, well, it’s my blog and I can do what I want.

We’ve been getting such a great response on our April men’s fashion story, “Kings Highway,” that I thought I’d share a little bit about turning our supermodel subject, Alex Lindquist, into a greasy mobster straight out of Brighton Beach, for our April Brooklyn issue.

Now you may remember Alex from his days as a huge superstar Guess? and Hugo Boss model (back when there were supermodels.

As you can see, Alex cleans up well but he makes a hell of a sleazy Russian gangster, too. (After all, being a supermodel is all about versatility.)

The transformation was no easy task but thanks to our friends at Temptu Pro we were able to cover Alex’s body in head-to-toe temporary tattoos. TemptuPro makes the ink for lots of Hollywood big budget movies and they were sweet enough to work round the clock to custom make authentic Russian prison designs for us that were incredibly realistic.