OK, let's forget about my bandwidth sorrows, let's erase what I've been trying to say about GQ in the last 48 hours, and let's take a fresh start:

1. The November issue of the British GQ (it's official: don't call it GQ UK anymore) has a dozen-page feature that could appear to be a great editorial coup: a lingerie shoot with the world's #1 supermodel, Giselle Bundchen, and her cute compatriot, Adriana Lima, missus Lenny Kravitz.

2. In fact, it is a thinly disguised marketing ploy of Victoria's Secret. Most of the pics are unpublished photos from the last Victoria's Secret campaign, and the "editorial" contains no less than 45 mentions of the brand, including a boldtype mention on the cover. It seems the delay between the shoot and the publication meant to shoot up the VS brand as close as possible to the Christmas season.

3. It is the second time this year British GQ opens up its pages to a promotion campaign (they had a La Perla feature in the spring). It seems their readers are particularly inclined to buy lingerie to their mistresses/girlfriends/(more probably) wives.

4. Since VS is promoted on the cover (and on the GQ billboards all over London), women are inclined to believe men prefer ladies in VS lingerie, so they buy it too. If this humble weblogger is to be considered as a typical male (I'm not, I'm not! Call me!), men prefer supermodels, period. If Adriana Lima were to sleep in the other room, I wouldn't mind her wearing an old Adidas short and a Fruits of the Loom T-shirt.

5. Not contend to get a free promotion, VS has also "persuaded" GQ editor to publish an interview with its creative director, Ed Razek. This guy is so boring the poor reporter (Sanjiv Bhattacharya) has to work really hard to convince us he has something to say. He tries to portray his subject as the genius behind VS' huge success, only to admit Razek is only two years in this position, long after VS repositioning.

6. Some insight from the interview: Giselle is "a ball", Heidi Klum has "just as great a personality in modeling as I ever met", Daniela Pestova has "probably the most beautiful face on the planet" (turns out Victoria's Secret creative director is just an idiot), Tyra Banks is "probably the most famous. Wherever I go, people ask if I've met Tyra Banks".

7. As for his dating techniques, "You can win a supermodel over by pretending she is not beautiful" (and good luck to you).

8. The British GQ print quality is significantly lower than its American counterpart. In fact, it is probably the worst paper used by any Conde Nast magazine. The ink can't dry correctly because the page is not heavy enough, and the white is in fact transparent, so you see the ad on the other side of the page instead of the photo background. Worst, the 6 layers of colors are not adjusted as they should be, so the Aurelie Claudel pic is out of focus and Adriana Lima's skin has sudden orange areas.

9. Still, we're not going to complain, are we? I've corrected the colors as best as I could with Photoshop 5.5 and ClearSkinFX. I'm sorry the d/l from sinfree is so s l o w . I'm working on other storage options, and in the meantime, let's roll!

10. This is the cover, with Adriana giving a hint of nudity.

11. That's the stunning double spread of the small pic above. i've cleaned the intrusive headlines and logos.

13. And that is the Adriana portrait that has been erased last friday, so if you received a 404 message, this is your cue to try again.

14. Ladies and Gentlemen, the A-team: a collective bikini-based portrait of Allessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima and Aurelie Claudel.

15. That's the nude pic of Aurelie Claudel, out of focus due to GQ's low printing standards, but still...

16. Moving on to Princess Giselle. this is the pic from the "Contents page", cleaned as much as I could. The pose reminds those early erotic pics from the 19th century (where's my whip?), or the erotic flick "9 1/2 weeks" with Kim Basinger. There's another version of this pose inside the magazine, here you go.

17. Now we have a slightly different shot from the last VS campaign, it was erased from Friday's post. alejandro was kind enough to upload the original VS pics og Giselle, here you go.

18. An unknown photograph of Giselle in bikini. Now, who could be interested in such a picture? It's an expressive pic, almost too good for VS, and indeed they didn't use it.

19. And finally, I also like this simple pic of Giselle in the islands. She looks great. I didn't use the Photoshop filters on this one, it would have erased the suggestive wrinkles on the bikini. (of course it's a coincidence, dummmy, nobody noticed).