Strange, but true. At least in the July issue of Elle magazine.
There, in a fashion spread on bikinis, according to today's New York Post, inquiring minds can find a full-color shot of the newly married Ms. Crawford...navel-free!
Now, logic would dictate that there are two, er, logical explanations for this anatomical anomaly:
Cindy Crawford is an alien life form; Somebody at Elle got air-brush happy.
Hate to ruin a Fox Mulder moment on the weekend the X-Files movie opens, but Crawford's M.I.A. belly button has nothing to do with the Invasion of the Supermodels from Another Planet.
Rather, it's a matter of plain, old magazine touch-up work.
"It's our little test to see who's really paying attention," editor Elaina Richardson jokes, in the Post.
The newspaper theorizes that Crawford's navel "apparently clashed" with the $300 bathing suit she was wearing, prompting the mag to take all means necessary to remove the offending body part.
No word yet from Crawford's camp.
Making the world a more beautiful place, via computer photo manipulation, is nothing new. Last winter, Newsweek fixed the teeth of the mother of the Iowa septuplets. Of course, it was a fix that existed only in the reality of the cover picture, but--hey--it's the thought that counts.
Elle's Richardson thinks her art department's handiwork could prove to be no less influential.
"Who knows," she cracks, to the Post, "maybe this will start a trend in plastic surgery for belly-button removal."