Pores. There they were. Paging through the 200-page Rizzoli book Amber, Guinevere & Kate Photographed by Craig McDean, which highlights the British photographer’s 1993-2005 portfolio of his three favorite models (Valletta, Van Seenus, and Moss, respectively), we saw, for the first time in so long, skin. In the place of the idealized, imagined, and hyper-perfected editorials and campaigns we're used to viewing in magazines, here were a trio of un-retouched, three-dimensional women. Van Seenus covered in nothing but clear gloss in ads for Jil Sander; Valletta and Shalom Harlow en plein air for W fashion spreads ; and a permed Moss, nude save for darkly drawn brows, in a 1996 Vogue Italia story. Hello, under-eye bags! Texture! Blemishes! Coffee-stained teeth! (....sun damage on Moss' shoulders, Valletta's laugh lines, Van Seenus' subtle 'neck rings'—you know, the stuff we all have...) You would never see any of that in ads or fashion spreads today.

As Valletta explains in the accompanying interview,“Now, there are really no surprises [in photographs], except that maybe they moved your arm to the other side of your body, or they swapped heads.” Not here. Take a look and give us your reactions in the comments below.

Photos by Mathea Millman.