In 1992, dance-pop trio Right Said Fred went to number one by singing about being too sexy for their shirt. The same could be said for world number one, Magnus Carlsen, as the teenager is too sexy for his chessboard by now doing a little turn on the catwalk.

Carlsen, 19, was the surprise choice to front a new Fall/Winter 2010 advertising campaign for G-Star RAW, a Dutch clothing company which produces stylish urban apparel, this week in Berlin at the Bread & Butter fashion trade show alongside the Hollywood actress Liv Tyler.

Norway's news agency NRK posted photos and video of Carlsen on its website, while shooting the campaign with the actress (check it out here at: http://nrksport.no/sjakk/1.7200825). Chess-players are not exactly known for their sartorial elegance, save for elbow patches on their favorite jacket - a fact Carlsen more or less conceded to NRK, when he said he wasn't big into fashion himself; at least not before he shot the campaign. "I think I look tough," Carlsen said to a journalist of NRK. "I think people will be surprised to see me like this. Surely just as surprised as I was when I was picked for this."

On September 10th, 2010, G-Star travels to the Cooper Star Hotel in New York City to host a global online chess competition: The Raw World Chess Challenge. Everyone in the world is invited to play Magnus Carlsen live on the internet. Three top Grandmasters, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura and Judit Polgar, will suggest a move each to the online registered public. The public can then vote online for their favorite move to be played against Magnus.

Magnus Carlsen also hit a new high with the official publication of the July 2010 FIDE rating list last week, as his world number one status skyrocketed another 11-points to 2826 after he devastated the field recently to win the Kings Tournament in Romania.

The 19-year-old has now become the 2nd highest-rated player in chess history, only behind Garry Kasparov's peak-published 1999 rating of 2851. In the process, he has moved 23 & 26-points, respectively, ahead of Veselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand at the top of the world rankings with a chance to stretch his lead at the top ahead of the recent world title contenders later in the year at elite tournaments in Shanghai - the Grand Slam Final - and the London Chess Classic.

Later this month, Vladimir Kramnik also has the chance to gain rating points in order to re-enter the "2800 club" as he's top seed in the upcoming Dortmund tournament.

July FIDE top ten: 1. M. Carlsen (+11) 2826; 2. V Topalov (-9), 2803; 3. V. Anand (+11), 2800; 4. V. Kramnik (=), 2790; 5. L. Aronian (=), 2783; 6. S. Mamedyarov (-2), 2761; 7. A. Grischuk (=), 2760; 8. P. Eljanov (+4), 2755; 9. A. Shirov (+7), 2749; 10. T Radjabov (+8), 2748.

Official FIDE list, click here.

 Featuring Chess.FM

One of the great benefits of ICC (apart from all the top-notch online play and tournaments) in recent years has been the upgrade in our Chess.FM service - many members agree that the live Chess.FM commentary and GOTDs from our elite tournament coverage alone is worthy of their membership fee. Also we have six regular weekly shows, one of which below being Chess Talk with IM John Watson.

	Watson Seirawan	GM Yasser Seirawan (1)  Full show (FREE) GM Yasser Seirawan (2) Full show (FREE) Recently on Chess Talk, there was a two-part special featuring Yasser Seirawan and an exclusive ICC member-only competition to win 4 personally autographed copies of his new book, Chess Duels: My Games Against the World Champions. Congratulations to ICC members cantav, BadbI5hOp, Delft & jmscamelot who won the competition - and already the books are making their way to the winners. This is just one of many great competitions for ICC members to win major prizes. You too can join in all the fun of our exclusive member-only competitions by joining ICC now by clicking here. And apart from the prize competitions, the live grandmaster commentary and the best of online play here on ICC, by being a member you get to view each week our six regular Chess.FM shows. And as a special treat to see what non-members are missing, we have made Yasser Seirawan's two-part special on Chess Talk free for you to listen to and enjoy. So why not become a member of ICC today?