For those unfamiliar with the SuicideGirls phenomenon, the Sunday Times offered some help: "Imagine Camden High Street naked and you'll get the picture - except it's not raining and the girls aren't covered in snakebite and bits of kebab."

SuicideGirls, according to the New York Times, is a Los Angeles-based website featuring "punk-rock pin-up girls who are both nude and tattooed". Snow, one of the 280 SuicideGirls, explained the scene to the Boston Globe: "There's punk, goth, alternative - everyone is involved in music and arts. And it's not just about the pictures."

Courtney Love recently had some of the SuicideGirls on her MTV special, while 70 of them featured in the video for the latest offering from Dave Grohl's thrash metal side-project, Probot. But the SuicideGirls site has reached beyond the alternative community, and is visited by more than 750,000 unique users a week. "Its appeal is universal," remarked the Face, "attracting equal number of male and female punters, aged between 18 and 40. And everyone wants a piece."

Despite the outcry in the US after Janet Jackson's over-exposure at this year's Superbowl, huge US corporations, including Warner Brothers, advertise on the site.

In February the Playboy website began its SuicideGirl of the Week section. "It seemed a match made in heaven," said the NY Times. "The arrangement does not involve money, but Playboy gets SuicideGirls' independent cachet and young fans while SuicideGirls get its merchandise in the Playboy store and, well, exposure." But the paper suspected the relation ship might start to sour when the SuicideGirls magazine emerges next month.

But the collaboration highlighted a concern expressed by the Chicago Tribune: "Regardless of how alternative they may be, isn't SuicideGirls just another forum, like Playboy or Penthouse for objectifying women?"

The brand, however, appears unstoppable. A coffee table book is due in June, and, according to the Face, there is talk of a possible live burlesque tour in Europe following the recent success of the US shows.