"Vogue - The Editor's Eye" and "W - The First 40 Years" - NYTimes.com Peter Lindbergh Biker chic from September 1991, part of a Peter Lindbergh shoot styled by Grace Coddington; from "Vogue: The Editor's Eye." How many fashion editors does it take to screw in a light bulb? And is that even part of their job description? The Editor's Eye Edited by Eve MacSweeney Abrams. $75. The First 40 Years Edited by Stefano Tonchi with Christopher Bagley and Joseph Logan Satoshi Saikusa Kate Moss photographed by Satoshi Saikusa, 1995; from "W: The First 40 Years." I refer not to the well-known so-called editrix, with her oracular pronouncements or omnipresent sunglasses, but the more obscure, self-effacing figure to her left. Sometimes called a stylist, sittings editor or creative director, she (or occasionally he) is the person who makes glossy magazine layouts of models or celebrities wearing expensive clothes come into being. Alas, despite hauling home two back-straining books that honor her, I cannot tell you precisely how she does this - or why. But since fashion is a realm of illusion and fantasy, maybe that's for the best. The thicker and more solemn of the books has been put out by Vogue, which is continually reinforcing its status as leader in the field with episodes of self-regard. The magazine has most recently been commemorating its 120th anniversary, encouraging chatter that its grand poobah, Anna Wintour, is planning to leave her post pretty soon. Else why not wait until the more conventional 125th anniversary? Whether or not that is true, this is a walloping tribute to key members of her cabinet past and present, including Grace Coddington, Wintour's Titian-haired foil in the popular documentary "The September Issue"; Polly Allen Mellen, a former disciple of Diana Vreeland known for her distinctive, sea-lion-like clap at fashion shows; and an exuberant St.-Tropez-raised phenom with the only-in-couture-kids name of Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele. Each is given the full movie-star profile treatment, with only occasional strain (of the veteran Phyllis Posnick, the hairdresser Julien d'Ys offers that she "pushes you to give the best of you"). And each emerges as having distinctive aesthetic visions - starkly minimalist, merry or romantic - though these might be tough for the general-interest reader to discern. These editors are like a circle of mischievous aunts, acting as both enabler and chaperon for the predatory photographer and his vulnerable, yet ultimately transcendent, subject. The lavish pictures that accompany these profiles are the kind that used to be analyzed with great spirit in women's studies classes at top universities in the early 1990s, and perhaps still. In them, beauties are subjected to various transgressions of their personal boundaries including nudity, with or without snakes; uncomfortable poses; corsets; beds of nails; masks and hoods; silly wigs or burlap sacks; and coatings of mud or paint, cream poured over the head Nickelodeon style and other foodstuffs. In the old days, when one Babs Simpson presided over shoots, they were often outfitted with now obsolete objects of leisure like martinis, telephones and record players; today, the trendiest accessory seems to be a baby. The images remain striking despite the passage of years, but since their basic raison d"être was to promote the looks of the moment, they are a hybrid of art and advertising. "Art-vertising?" proposed one male acquaintance, leafing abstractedly through the pages - medieval-scale compendiums of semi-naked women tending to attract crowds. Far less formal is a book celebrating the 40th anniversary of W, the oversize magazine that, since its founding as an offshoot of the trade paper Women's Wear Daily, has acted less earnest chronicler of fashion's court than its jester. This volume is divided into chapters of Who (gossip and famous people), Where (parties and exotic locations) and Wow (extreme fashion photography, arranged mostly by the longtime creative director Dennis Freedman), to which I would append the occasional Whoops. Unlike Vogue, which tends to buff its subjects to a high sheen, W has never been afraid to make them look ridiculous: the stars as they really are, or worse. A portfolio of major couture clients taken by the photographer Juergen Teller, a favorite of the staff, exposes stringy neck cords and artificially plumped lips, the signs of mortality that even the most premium wardrobe cannot fend off. Nor is his camera kind to the beachy-keen "80s supermodel Christie Brinkley, here resembling a haunted Las Vegas showgirl. The men are not spared either, with the designer Tom Ford bragging about his naturally hairless buttocks; silver-haired Giorgio Armani in a sliver of a bathing suit, forking up seafood (why does food photography age so terribly?); and Brad Pitt cavorting with Angelina Jolie in the infamous spread of a 1960s-style domestic idyll that led his ex-wife to accuse him of lacking a "sensitivity chip." Then again, beauty and brutality have always been braided together in fashion, with its cruel dictates that yesterday's perfectly useful purchases be discarded and its exclusion of the fleshy, the poor, the old. These books exalting it are both vanity projects, and this is one of the few industries where that is not considered an insult. Alexandra Jacobs is an editor at the Thursday and Sunday Styles sections of The Times.