“Excuse me?” replied my roommate, envisioning bloody chunks of brain. Of course my booker was referring to the close-up on the front of my comp card.

Now Swedish retailer H&M is giving new meaning to the term by plunking headshots onto computer-generated bodies. In other words, they’re booking models and shooting just headshots, which takes a fraction of the time it takes to have a model change into various looks, a stylist style those outfits, and a photographer shoot the model in a range of poses. All this translates into reduced work and income for everyone except graphic designers, not to mention a greater temptation to lipo those cyber bodies into unattainable proportions.

The plus: if a model is feeling a bit bloated or her butt expanded over the holidays, no biggie; the camera’s not capturing anything below the neck. But as nice as guilt-free gorging may be, let’s hope other clients don’t follow H&M’s lead. I’ve shopped at H&M since ’92 in Germany—models in Munich loved getting Quelle catalog bookings in Nuremberg, because H&M was in the mall across the street from the studio. Now that H&M is right here in the States, it’s a shame I may have to boycott them.

What do you think, cyber bodies: cool or lame?