The Fashion Issue 2011

FREE VOLUME 9 NUMBER 3

T E R RY K E N N E DY SI GN ATU RE S H O E THE SOCIETY MID IN BLACK SUEDE // SUPRAFOOTWEAR.COM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Photo by Jaimie Warren

VOLUME 9 NUMBER 3 Cover by Ryan McGinley

LOOK AT THESE FUCKING BOOTS! Mexican Footwear Finally Gets to the Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

ISLAMABAD FASHION WEEK Hot New Spring Looks From Pakistani Kashmir . . . . . . . . . . 26

HANGIN’ OUT IN MY FUNDERWEAR The Delicate Touch Means So Much . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

NICOLA FORMICHETTI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 VERA BARRETO LEITE VALDEZ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

MORT COUTURE Fashion Tips from Dead Designers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 10 Masthead 12 Employees 46 DOs & DON’T 54 Fashion: Robothugs 2025 66 Fashion: Tomato Face 72 Bob Odenkirk’s Page 74 Hamilton’s Pharmacoepia 76 The Learnin’ Corner 78 The Cute Show Page! 80 Johnny Ryan’s Page

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FOUNDERS Suroosh Alvi, Shane Smith EDITOR Royce Akers (royce@viceaustralia.com) EDITOR AT LARGE Briony Wright (briony@viceaustralia.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Chris Cechin (chrisc@viceland.com) SENIOR EDITOR Rocco Castoro (rocco@viceland.com) SENIOR WRITER Thomas Morton (thomasm@viceland.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Ellis Jones (ellis@viceland.com) FASHION EDITOR Annette Lamothe-Ramos (annette@viceland.com) GLOBAL EDITOR Andy Capper LAYOUT inkubator.ca WEB DESIGN Solid Sender DESIGN ASSOCIATE Ben Thomson (ben@viceaustralia.com) WORDS Esteban Sheridan Cárdenas, Harry Cheadle, Charlet Duboc, Juan Hinestroza, André Maleronka, Hamilton Morris, Bob Odenkirk, Neda Vanovac, Sam Voulters PHOTOS Coco Capitán, Bobby Doherty, William Fairman, Alicia Kish, Ryan McGinley, Jared O’Sullivan, Aliya Naumoff, Fernanda Negrini, Martha Tattersall, Edith Valle, Jaimie Warren ILLUSTRATIONS Heesco Khosnaran, Johnny Ryan, COPY EDITOR Mieke Chew VICE AUSTRALIA Send us: Letters, DOs & DON’Ts, all CDs for review, magazines, books, neat stuff, etc.

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EMPLOYEES OF THE MONTH

FERNANDA NEGRINI Before we shackled her to a desk and made her the editor of Vice Brazil, Fernanda was a photographer. Since then, she hasn’t had much time to take pictures or have any kind of personal life—and for that we apologise but are not sorry. Last month she did manage to sneak in time to shoot Brazil’s first supermodel, Vera Valdez, who spent alternating years as Coco Chanel’s most prized model, a political exile, and a tortured inmate in a Brazilian prison. We should also mention that Fernanda is married to Tony, the publisher of Vice Brazil. In yet another indignity aimed in Fernanda’s direction, Tony announced to everyone that 75-year-old Vera gave him a giant kiss when he dropped her off after her Vice shoot. We actually are sorry for that, Fernanda.

See VERA BARRETO LEITE VALDEZ, page 40

LARRY LEONG Larry used to work in a lot of the bars that we used to go to. Now she’s one of our go-to people for putting clothes on people in ways that look good. In this issue, she dressed a bunch of cute young asian kids whose faces were all red from drinking. It’s a common condition (our editor gets it) often referred to as asian glow, caused by a lack of the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, important in the metabolism of alcoholic booze. Larry tracked these kids down with spectacular speed and accuracy with the help of a facebook page called “I get the Asian Glow/Flush… But I’m not fuck’d up dumbass!!” Oh, she also did the Puma shoot on page 62. When not making people look more attractive, she can be found mucking about with her kitty, Keith.

See TOMATO FACE, page 66

TIM BARNETT Congratulations to Tim “Cookie” Barnett, who this month takes over the reigns at our office in Auckland. Tim was born in Crouch End, London, but has lived in AK his whole life and says (as per his contract) that has no desire to go anywhere else. His daily duties will now consist of taking clients out for expensive lunches, swanning about at fancy openings, hanging out backstage at gigs most people can’t even get into, and getting potential clients to sign on the line or it’s his ass.

In his spare time, Tim skates and tunes pipe organs all across New Zealand, which is definitely a first when it comes to passtimes of Vice ad sales guys. They generally spend their evenings tuning a different kind of organ, if you catch our drift. This is not to say that Tim doesn’t wank, that’s something we can neither confirm nor deny.

JOSH GARDINER We’ve been working with Josh for years but he recently came on board as our full-time content guy. I’m pretty sure it actually says that on his business card. “Content Guy.” Ironically, he is a fairly content guy, in the sense that he’s generally pretty relaxed and easy to get along with. He seems happy, is what we’re saying. Josh used to work at Speak n Spell Records and he’s also written for magazines such as Dazed & Confused, Russh, Oyster and Big Issue. Here at Vice, he’ll work across PR, ad creative, web content and stuff for the mag. Josh surfs, plays guitar, has a fairly decent cover drive and a nigh-on-photographic memory. Apparently back in New Zealand, where he’s from, people used to call him up to ask where the nearest Street Fighter II was. This was before iPhones, obviously, but it’s got to still be useful for something.

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adidas is all in

Los Hermanos’ boots.

Custom glitter boots from Zaragoza de Solís.

Custom boots made for the crew Los Parranderos.

Martín Hernandez Rodriguez (red shirt), Saul Nicolás Coronado (black shirt), and Gabriel Rodriguez Flores (white shirt) are a dance crew from Buenavista.

Homemade botas exóticas from Zaragoza de Solís.

LOOK AT THESE FUCKING BOOTS!

of Mexicans who critique the fashions of their countrymen on hotly trafficked style blogs.

But we were told we were too late, that the wrongly maligned wearers of what are by far the most wondrous footwear we’ve ever seen had been replaced with short, square, “pig-nosed” boots by stubby contrarians.

We’d seen the occasional report about the exotic pointy-boot trend making its way stateside, spreading into Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and other places where big groups of immigrant Mexicans have taken root, and we expected that the odds

Mexican Footwear Finally Gets to the Point BY ESTEBAN SHERIDAN CÁRDENAS PHOTOS BY EDITH VALLE

14 VICE

ast month we went to the dusty city of Matehuala, Mexico, in the northern state of San Luís Potosí on the high plateau of the Huasteca Potosina, in search of the pointiest long-toed cowboy boots ever made. Over the past year, the botas vaqueras exóticas phenomenon has overrun the rodeo dance floors and clubs of this area, much to the dissatisfaction

L

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Luis Angel Castillo Sierra from Buenavista.

Gustavo, 11, and Carlos Mendoza, 15, are known as Los Hermanos. They took second place in the dance contest finals.

were pretty low that the style had phased out of Mexico completely. So we made our way to Mesquit Rodeo and Desierto Light, two cowboy venues in Matehuala, where party promoters host dance-offs to music known as tribal guarachero. Essentially, this sound is a combination of thumpy house music, ancient Hispanic chants and flute work, and Colombian dance songs known as cumbia.

In Matehuala, guarachero has become an unlikely style of music where a bunch of people who in theory should not get along come together and get along. It’s also the music preferred by the men and boys in the long and pointed boots.

Participants in these dance contests spend the days and weeks prior choreographing intricate footwork routines and fabricating their own outfits with cheap paint and

16 VICE

Our favorite pair of glitter boots from Zaragoza de SolĂ­s.

fabric. The grand prize, beyond the enthusiastic crowd’s affection, is either a bottle of whiskey or a few bucks.

A separate contest, we were pleased to discover, is held for the longest, most ornate and pointed boots, which are also spotlighted in public song-and-dance programs. The exotic boots are made by modifying boring normal ones with materials bought in local hardware and craft stores.

The fanciest are adorned with LED lights or mirrors, while others incorporate paint and every colour of sequins. They all get the glitter treatment no matter what. It was explained to us that some boots have measured upward of five feet in length.

So maybe the rumor that people were bored of these boots was nothing more than hateful slander by jealous losers with no long boots of their own.

Martín Cerda Cruz, of the Barrio Apache Hyphy crew.

Jesús Briones, from Zaragoza de Solís, is another member of the Barrio Apache Hyphy crew.

Gabriel Amaro Barajas, aka Minri, told us that it is in part a competitive argument, that the people of Matehuala wrongly took credit for the creation of the botas vaqueras exoticas.

He explained that when Matehualan creations were unable to keep up with the sparkly likes of his own, they pretended to be done with the scene altogether. Minri appears in a picture on Chuntaritos.com, a site dedicated lousy fashion, and is identified as having “the most pointy boots of 2010.” There are more than 100 comments railing on his five-foot winners, which in person are so long that he is forced to tie them to his belt in order to walk. He assured us that his crew, Barrio Apache Hyphy, started the trend—not in Matahuala but in the small neighboring community of Zaragoza de Solís.

“Those from Matehuala don’t use these boots anymore because they couldn’t compete,” Minri said. “They can’t beat us.”

We asked him what he thought the opinion of the general public might be.

“When people see someone walking with pointy boots,” he said, “they say, ‘No way, that guy is insane! Why do you wear those boots?’ But I say that everyone wears his own style, right?”

18 VICE

Minri introduced us to a few others from his crew. There was Francisco the Cell Phone Guy, a group called Los Pachangueros, some kids from Guadalupe, and a couple guys called Los Carnales, from the ranch of San Francisco.

They were all sporting pointy boots.

We also met a different Francisco, an 18-year-old kid who, together with his wife, sells prepaid phone cards and cases for mobile phones in a tiny store in a market nearby.

Usually he can be found strolling around proudly downtown wearing aqua-coloured skinny jeans and spectacular boots decorated with red beads. They’re at least a couple feet in length, maybe longer.

Besides making his own boots, Francisco also crafts boots that he puts up for sale—he’s created more than 100 pairs to date, by his estimation. He’s even seen his creations in the US in pictures on websites.

We asked him what he thought about the dustup between pro- and anti-pointy-boot factions.

“Everyone does his own thing,” he said. “To me, these are the best boots—that’s it. I like these very much, and I dance with them. I don’t care what people think. As long as I like it, I don’t give a damn. That’s what I think.”

HANGIN’ OUT IN MY FUNDERWEAR The Delicate Touch Means So Much

BY HARRY CHEADLE PHOTOS BY BOBBY DOHERTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHNNY RYAN

am usually a pretty heteronormative kind of guy, especially when it comes to undergarments. I buy boxers from the dollar store in packages of six and refuse to purchase additional pairs until I lose a couple, or they get so worn out and stained that it would be more hygienic to let my genitals flop around in my trousers like the Velveteen Rabbit.

Lately, however, I’ve been feeling very undesirable and wondering things like, “How come ladies and gay guys get to have all the fun and sexy undies?” Then I realised, hey, there was nothing stopping me from slipping into the leg holes of some lacy unmentionables or leather briefs with a removable codpiece.

After a bit of internet underwear research, I became very excited and treated myself to seven pairs of the most elaborate, esoteric, and erotic skivvies to ever grace my hindquarters. Over the next week, I kept a little diary of the proceedings as an intimate keepsake and rated my new underclothes on a 1-5 glitter-dong scale.

I

MONDAY: KISS MY HEART Y-BACK BY APOLLOWEAR

TUESDAY: SO CHIC! CHAIN LINK THONG BY BANG! HIM

I discovered that these weren’t a thong after putting them on the wrong way, which resulted in one of the strings cleaving my butt crack. It was very disagreeable, but I quickly recognised my mistake (the heart over my dick was sideways) and slid them around the right way. The fabric felt cheap, which consequently made me feel like a go-go dancer who would fuck old guys for coke, and maybe not even that much coke.

Good ball support, though.

I thought I wouldn’t be able to get these over my beefy straight-guy thighs, but surprisingly the spandex stretched out to a snug fit.

I didn’t mind the thong at first, and these offered the added bonus of cradling my junk nicely. A couple hours later, my mind had changed.

The chain pressed into my skin and left painful red indentations while the thong gradually wedgied its way up my rear as I worked at my desk. My recommendation is that one should only wear these for a short period of time, which I’m sure is usually the case.

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WEDNESDAY: SEXY DESIGNER BRAZILIAN BACK BRIEF

BY BANG! HIM

THURSDAY: SLING RING STUDDED FULL BODY THONG

BY APOLLOWEAR

These were clearly designed for smooth young cabana boys who shave and wax regularly. My man bits were barely contained by the pouch and looked as though someone was trying and failing to catch a rodent in a napkin.

The metal bands attached to the waistband didn’t dig into my skin as much as Tuesday’s little number, but these made me look terrible—like something a dad would dream up to scare his potentially gay son straight.

The attached suspenders meant it was impossible to ignore or forget that I was wearing this contraption, which I’m sure some people really appreciate.

It felt like a spider monkey was draped across my torso with its hands on my shoulders, one of its prehensile feet lifting my balls just so, and its toes crammed into my asshole.

After a few days of bashfulness, I decided to hit the town that night. Pretty soon I was drunk enough to show everyone the studded suspenders underneath my shirt. No one was as excited as me.

They were sort of fun to wear, but frankly, I don’t have the muscles to pull off this look.

FRIDAY: MEN’S STUDDED BLACK LEATHER THONG

BY INFERNO

SATURDAY: RAINBOW PRIDE SWIMMER JOCKSTRAP BY ACTIVEMAN

My favorite pair by far. They are made of real fucking leather that smells amazing and feature shiny metal snaps on the front. I can see why some people are so into leather because—unlike some of the other underwear I wore this week—these didn’t chafe or make me feel like a gloryhole attendant. There are even these convenient metal snap buttons on the codpiece in case you need to pee, let your dick breathe a little, or whip it out so some dude can suck you off in the stacks of an adult bookstore. What more could you ask for in an article of clothing?

I know the rainbow colours on the cock pouch are supposed to represent gay pride, but to me it looked more like my penis was a tiny Rastafarian guy. Awesome!

Unfortunately, the black straps are incredibly uncomfortable, almost worse than Tuesday’s chain dealie. These get an A for looks but a D for comfort.

SUNDAY: FANCY HI-CUT

BY MANTIES It seemed like these were designed by a woman, or maybe for women and later altered so people like me would be suckered into buying them.

I had to really work to pull these up my legs, and there’s no fly or Y-front so I had to painfully roll them down every time I had to take a leak.

The other pairs said, “I’m down to fuck some dudes or maybe get fucked by a bunch of dudes at once.” These said, “I’m a cross-dressing fairy from 1955!” Call me homophobic, but I like the first statement better.

THE VERDICT: I wish I could say I felt sexier and more confident in my new underwear, but mostly they just made me feel uncomfortable and gross. There’s a reason why thongs, frills, and lace are attractive to gays, women, and other penis enthusiasts, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is. I’m returning to my familiar old boxers, and I’m sure my asshole and balls will thank me.

VICE 21

The author posing with a suitably ye-olde looking telephone.

MORT COUTURE

settled now, and less troubled than she was when she was on the planet.

Fashion Tips From Dead Designers

What would she think of the direction that fashion has been heading in in the last few years, especially post-GFC? [Inhales disapprovingly.] Not happy. Not happy at all. It’s like, ah, how would I put this. She says that the “colour has gone out of the industry.”

INTERVIEW BY NEDA VANOVAC

hat do the so-called “fashion experts” in your glossy magazines know about style?

A fair bit, probably. On the other hand, the late, great heads of Chanel and Versace have about a gazillion years of experience between them. Too bad they carked it, right? Well maybe not. Vice writer Neda Vanovac called “Hope”, a hot-line medium, to get a direct line to two of the biggest and deadest names in fashion.

W

Vice: Hi, we were wondering if you could help us get in touch with people in the fashion industry that have passed on.

Hope: Well, I am a medium, here, darl, so I would need their name and their passing over dates.

10th January 1971. Coco Chanel. Gabrielle Chanel.

She was a wonderful soul, wasn’t she. [Pauses]. Chanel. She lived such a vibrant life, you know, and she was quite old when she passed over… She is more 22 VICE

The colour has gone out of the industry.

Yes. You know, it’s not as vibrant as it used to be.

She says that if you go back into the… she says something about sixty-three. So perhaps look into something around that time, if there was an interview with her… because I feel that’s where the connection is, of the direction that fashion was taking.

Does she have anything to say in terms of elegance?

She was so outspoken on the issues of elegance, and vulgarity, and luxury.

Yes. Well, she keeps mentioning the style from the 30s. She loved that era because it changed the way that people viewed fashion. She says, “They seem to be on the right track there with fabrics.” Fabrics, as you— [begins to stammer.] Sorry about the stammering.

Inquiries - NOIR distribution - fred@noirdistribution.com.au

a very big ego, obviously. …She changed what fashion is.

She is fashion.

I was hoping we might also be able to connect with Gianni Versace. I have his date of death—it was July 15th, 1997.

[Long silence.] That’s 1997? That’s when he passed over?

Yes. [Silence.] “Transformation” is a word that comes up with him. [Pause.] Just bear with me for a while, sometimes it takes while to connect, darling, because Chanel is still saying things. She’s a very strong woman, with her opinions.

She wasn’t exactly fond of some of Giovanni’s [sic] styles.

Hope’s internet advertisement.

That’s alright.

Because she did speak another language.

She was French.

Yep. Yes. And she did at times have difficulty with English.

She’s saying that it’s the important thing is the fabric, and the flow of the fabric. You know? She says, “they seem to have lost that lately.”

Do you think she’d have an opinion on reality stars and the trashier aesthetic seeping into society?

She says “loss of direction.” Loss of direction on… again, fabrics. She’s obsessive about fabrics. When she was alive, how do I put this? The fabric had to be the right fabric. …She’s saying, “they’ve lost the identity of fabric.”

I wonder if that extends more widely to the identities of people themselves?

[Long Pause.] It’s very possible, darling. And even though she was a slender person, she’s saying that they’re way, way too skinny now. The image I’m getting, is, if you look back… before Twiggy, they were more voluptuous. She says that “designs are made for women with curves.” You know, more curvy. More woman! [Laughs] You wonder— sorry, what was your name again, darl?

It’s Neda.

Lovely name, darl.

Thank you.

So, um—ahh—sorry, I just lost concentration there for a moment. She was happy when she passed over. She was happy that her time was over. It was just getting too much for her there in the last ten years. She enjoyed her reclusiveness. She has other designs that no one’s seen yet. Yeah.

She says they will come out again.

Through the house of Chanel, or somewhere else?

Somewhere else. Perhaps from where she was living, or she’s given them to someone.

Will we be able to recognise them once they do come out?

[Inhales.] “Undeniably,” she says. She, she, how would you put it? She says you can’t not know her way. She had 24 VICE

He did once say, “you dress elegant women, you dress sophisticated women, I dress sluts.” He could have been saying that to Chanel, their styles were so different.

And because, you know, ultra-feminine, Dior [sic], and he was more towards ultra-glamour, glitzy, glitzy, is the word. He loved glitz. And he showed that in what he designed. Was he a cross-dresser?

He was homosexual; I’m not sure if he was a cross-dresser.

Because I’m seeing him wanting men to wear more flamboyant or more, how would I put it, style. He just loved using colour, but also wanted men in suits with sequins… he did Liberace stuff too, didn’t he?

He did. Does he think that style will be coming back?

He says he hope so, but that he doesn’t believe that is possible the way men think about things. [Laughs.]

Does he feel that having died so prematurely he was gone before he was fully able to realise his vision?

He talks about understanding that it was his time. That if he continued, he would have headed in a new direction. He says that even though people thought him to be, over the top, he had a heart that understood the suffering of people. He sometimes wished that his designs could be more affordable for others. He doesn’t like copies. He says, “I do one only.”

Does he think they ever will become more affordable?

[Long pause.] He says in time. In time. He says it’s about to change because it needs to. [Coughs] Chanel in the background is saying that it obviously needs to change.

So, they’re talking to eachother?

Oh yes, very much so. I’m seeing flowy material in front of me, and I’m trying to figure out what the fabric is. It’s a fabric that they both used and loved. It’s see-through, but with colours through it. A light nylon, or something. It’s like the colours will be more true. Ah! That’s it. True like nature, the colours of nature. Reds, greens, blues.

Um… this is getting expensive. Any last words?

They keep on talking—they both say here that they wish the colours they can see now could be made. And they can be made more these days than they could then. Like Giovanni [sic] of the 90s. We’re seeing colours differently, in other words. Because before they wouldn’t put blue and green together, or purple and orange, that sort of thing, even though they did use those colours. They do say, “it needs to be more flowy.”

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Male models warming up in the basement of the Serena Hotel, which doubles as a bomb shelter.

ISLAMABAD FASHION WEEK Hot New Spring Looks From Pakistani Kashmir BY CHARLET DUBOC PHOTOS BY WILLIAM FAIRMAN

26 VICE

akistan’s first Fashion Week was a disaster.

Held last year in Karachi, it had to be rescheduled twice and eventually downsized because the electricity kept going off and Islamic fundamentalists kept threatening to blow it up. This year’s event was held at the Serena, a five-star hotel in Islamabad, in late January. Given that the capital’s only other five-star hotel, the Marriott, was the site of a 2008 bomb attack that killed 54 people and left a huge crater still visible outside its premises, competition for hosting duties probably wasn’t too stiff.

We arrived to find that a mile-wide no-man’s-land had been cleared around the 14-acre hotel, its perimeter consisting of blast walls and barbed wire. To get to the gates, visitors had to slalom through several checkpoints manned by dozens of police with folding-stock AK-47s. The hotel itself was unremarkable, boasting the same imported and homogenised luxury you expect anywhere these days. The only thing that set it apart from a five-star hotel in the center of London was the fact that the bowels of the building doubled as a bomb shelter. Whether preemptively or otherwise, the organisers had decided that it was in this area that Fashion Week would take place.

P

For four days we watched models in stupid clothes shuttle up and down a catwalk while other people watched them and clapped each time they completed a circuit, as if they’d achieved something just by making it back alive.

The backstage atmosphere at the evening couture show felt similar to Western fashion events. The air was acrid with hairspray and tobacco smoke, and the cream of Pakistan’s modeling crop were draped weakly over furniture, glued to their BlackBerries, fanning themselves. Flamboyant men who identified themselves as choreographers, stylists, and designers darted about, throwing their hands in the air, exclaiming superlatives like “Die for!!” and sighing theatrically.

The high-end female models were pretty stunning and so were the guys, but less “stunning beautiful” and more “stunning Zoolander.” Also “not a little gay.” Most came from Karachi or Lahore and were stockily built with manga-style haircuts, stubbly chests, and default pouts that returned the moment you turned the camera on them. For most this was their first-ever modeling job and I suddenly felt nervous and excited for them.

Despite their awkwardness, these boys stormed down the runway at Ammar Belal’s debut show to a soundtrack of 50s rock ’n’ roll. It was charming.

By the end of it I’d definitely developed a crush on at least one of them and had totally forgotten my preoccupation with the hotel being bombed.

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MISHKA

The less traditional fashions on show this year seem loosely based on a Chippendales-goes-to-Mecca theme.

Outfits to die for, literally, if you are one of the numerous mullahs who warned of suicide bombings being plotted against the event.

Most of the after-shows were eased along by a lot of booze, weed, and (surprisingly) cocaine. Despite the efforts of the latter, few egos in the room could compete with the show’s ringmaster, Tariq Amin, who claims to have “introduced the concept of style to Pakistan.”

As well as being Pakistan’s self-appointed fashion guru, Amin has his own reality-TV show and record label and is an award-winning hairstylist, makeup artist, and actor. He is a large, bearded man with tremendous presence, whose wild and regular spazzouts over minor fashion emergencies had everyone on edge and whose booming, paternal tenor also served to restore calm to the room.

One guy we met at the after-party was smoking opium-laced hash. With eyes bulging, he offered me both cocaine and the chance to be the star of his show the next day, promising that Tariq would do my hair and makeup and that I’d be given a catwalking master class.

I accepted the latter.

The next day’s shows were plagued by power outages and designer no-shows. The Indian designers who had been invited had their visas denied at the border. Tariq lost his rag at one point, pushing our camera away. I began to feel like we’d outstayed our welcome, and everybody’s energy for putting on a brave face for the press was waning.

As feared, Tariq put the kibosh on the idea of me participating in the show, declaring that my blond hair made it “logistically impossible.” When the girls came out of the makeup room, I kind of got his point. They all had waist28 VICE

Tariq Amin with the author.

length tribal braided black hair extensions, inspired, Tariq said, “by a fusion of Rasta and northern Pakistani tribal dress.” I agreed that maybe I wouldn’t be able to pull that look off with too much aplomb.

Later in the week we met up with some students and somehow I found myself trying on their designs, including some garish PVC costumes that rivaled Central Saint Martins creations in terms of inspiration and workmanship. They wouldn’t let me get undressed to try them on, so I had to force them on over clothes.

When asked what inspired them, the students launched into lengthy tirades about peace, love, spirituality, and Lady Gaga, using phrases like “one blood,” “I am not a terrorist,” and “Rihanna is the best!”

The best quote of all was: “It’s fashion, not drones, that is going to save Pakistan.”

Another point of view came from an important person we met whose identity we agreed to keep secret. He said that the country will go up in flames within the next generation, and that these bursts of liberalism are the last hurrah for Pakistan’s shrinking elite. Drunk at one of the after-parties and wearing a silk blouse with peacocks on it, he kept repeating that the country’s infrastructure is so chronically disabled and the majority of people are so poor that radical madrassas are not only the most attractive option for young men but maybe the only institutions left that can make good on their offers of food, shelter, and a sense of purpose.

A full report of what happened in Islamabad will air on VBS in the coming months.

PHOTOS BY ALICIA KISH

MEANWHILE, IN MONGOLIA

Of all the outfits we saw over the last year, these skimpy little numbers were some of the best. Curled up genie boots, silky Speedos, the upper-body equivalent of chaps, all topped off with a cute little gold-tipped hat. It’s kind of like the ultimate male go-go dancer get up, just transported ten thousand kilometres from the nearest night club towards the middle of nowhere.

To find out more, we called our Mongolian illustrator friend Heesco who, perhaps correctly, pointed out that asking him about traditional Mongolian costumes was like him asking us about kangaroo hunting.

VICE: So Heesco, what are we looking at here?

Heesco Khosnaran: Um, these are traditional Mongolian wrestling outfits.

Why are they so… skimpy?

Well they have to be kind of minimal so you can have lots of movement and also so your opponent can’t just grab you by your clothes. But you’re probably asking about the shirt, right?

Yeah, what can you tell us about that?

The story with that is people used to compete in full jackets, but then one day a woman entered one of the tournaments which is against Mongolian custom. With the costume though, nobody could tell, and because she was really strong, she actually won the tournament. Once the men found out, they decided to cut the front off their jackets so more women couldn’t sneak in.

When was that?

The story isn’t dated. It could be a myth, but it’s how people generally explain it.

How about the pants? They look too flimsy to wear in a wrestling match.

No, everything these guys wear is actually really tough. It has to be because it all gets grabbed and pulled a lot. To get these clothes you have to go to a special tailor and get measured up properly. It’s all custom made.

It looks pretty shiny, is it like, silk or something?

Um, I don’t know exactly what it’s made of… I’m not really an expert, I’d probably have to ask my wife…

That’s cool, let’s move on to the boots.

The boots are just traditional nomad boots. They’re not specifically for wrestling. The curl at the end is for hooking your feet into stirrups when you’re riding a horse but there are actually some wrestling moves where you can hook the other guy’s leg with them.

So they’re good for that too. How about the pointy hat?

Um, the hat I think goes back to the military.

Like back in the war?

No, like way back in the olden days. I think it’s what the soldiers would have worn . We call it Janjin. It’s got this knot… what do you call it…

A knot?

It’s like a knot that goes three this way and three that way and it’s all interconnected… Like I said, I’m not an expert. Anyway, do you need me to draw you something or not?

Oh yeah, we need a big old-timey drawing of Genghis for the next page.

Well alright then.

Subscribe this month and you could win a free DNA test to see if you’re a descendant of Genghis Khan. It might answer a few nagging questions, like: “why am I so much better than all of my friends?” With thanks to Fat Yak, official beer of the Great Kahn.

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34 VICE

NICOLA FORMICHETTI INTERVIEW BY SAM VOULTERS PORTRAITS BY COCO CAPITÁN

esigner Nicola Formichetti was born in Japan and raised in Italy, which is the fashion-industry equivalent of an anorexic midget with arms like Popeye deciding to become a jockey. Nicola arrived in London in his early 20s and since then has helped launch the careers of young British titans Gareth Pugh and Kim Jones. He’s best known, however, as the creative director of Mugler, the label founded by and named after a man formerly known as Thierry who once designed clothing that resembled insect exoskeletons and transformed the torsos of models into motorcycles and later abandoned the fashion world to become “Manfred”—a muscle-bound behemoth with nipples that look like they’ve been enlarged with a toilet plunger.

D

VICE 35

n January, Nicola dropped the “Thierry” and debuted the revamped Mugler line to almost unanimous praise, but reinvigorating the left-for-dead brand is just one of his many hobbies. In his spare seconds he is also the fashion director for Lady Gaga, Vogue Hommes Japan (which is unarguably one of the best menswear magazines on the planet), and Uniqlo.

I first met Nicola when artist Matthew Stone was assisting him on a project and they scouted me as a model outside Koko, a music venue in Camden. Nicola took photos of me for the McQ by Alexander McQueen line, and shortly after that I found myself working for him full-time at Dazed & Confused, where he was a superyoung fashion boss doing lots of smart and beautiful things.

Today Nicola lives in New York, but I met up with him recently at a hotel in Central London during the scant hours he had between creating his first Mugler show in Paris (which took place in January) and preparing Lady Gaga for the Grammys.

I

Vice: Why are you back in London? Are you here to work on anything in particular?

Nicola Formichetti: I just finished my men’s show in Paris, so I came here to work on the women’s one, which happens at the beginning of March. I’m also here to work on the MAC Cosmetics campaign and Gaga’s Grammy outfits.

“With the best styling in the world, a shit image is still shit. I love being in control of the whole thing.”

Were you surprised when you were approached to become Mugler’s new creative director? It seems like it could’ve been completely unexpected.

The CEO, Joël Palix, approached me and we spoke a bit.

I was in my apartment in New York when he called, and I freaked out because I was so excited. At first I decided that I wouldn’t be able to do the job they were asking me to— you can’t resurrect Mugler. He was so much more than just “fashion.” He was fashion, music, the underground: a one-man subculture. But then I started researching who he was rather than what he had done. When I got to the root of it all I saw that he’d never been to fashion school and that he was always this punk outsider. So I was just like, “Fuck it. I’ll do it.”

It’s interesting to me that Mugler has never been a commercial brand. Are you finally going to take the focus away from the catwalk and make it marketable?

No. I want the brand to be successful, of course, but what I want to do initially is to continue what Mugler has always stood for. It’s more important to be exciting than to sell products. I want to recapture that feeling I had when I first

36 VICE

saw Thierry Mugler’s clothes, or the “Too Funky” video he did for George Michael. It’s the attitude I want to bring back rather than just making the brand loads of money.

How is your outlook different from Thierry’s? For instance, what inspired you to make menswear?

Mugler’s focus has always been on the women’s wear— the rubber, the classical suiting, the fabulous pearls. So for the men’s collection I just went back to the women’s stuff and reinterpreted it. His clothes have always been about giving power, whether that power came through a domineering silhouette or by broadening their shoulders. It’s always been about making people look superhuman. What I wanted to do was to internalise that power. The clothing still gives you an imposing silhouette, but it’s a simpler one. When I started looking around for casting, Rico [Rick Genest] was the perfect match.

Because he’s tattooed his entire body and face to look like a skeleton?

Yeah, for sure. Who else has found a clearer visual way to take their internal feelings and externalise them?

Was it a big struggle to put the show together, being that it was your first for Mugler?

We didn’t have enough clothes for it. We weren’t even going to do a show at one stage. It was all very last minute, but then we realised it didn’t matter if we didn’t have a huge collection to sell because really it’s an atmosphere you’re selling. If you could see through the initial freakishness of the presentation, the clothes themselves were actually very wearable.

I suppose it’s harder to be outlandish when you’re making clothes for men.

Totally. Men’s fashion is still more restricted. You do anything a little bit “out there” and you’re instantly labeled a “gay” or a “freak.” There’s a fine line there.

Are people’s attitudes changing?

A little bit. It’s taking a long time, but it’ll be worth it when we get there.

So you see that as a personal mission. [laughs] I don’t know. I just want what I’m working on to work out well.

I’ve heard stories that when you started out in fashion you’d take look books out to clubs so you could geek up on other designers’ collections.

Oh my God! Where did you hear that?

It’s just a rumor going around. There are a few in that vein.

Fucking hell, no! I love that, though—the nerd studying by himself with his books in the corner of the nightclub.

It takes true commitment. Why did you first come over to the UK? I was born in Japan, where my mother’s from, and when I was old enough to go to high school we moved to Italy. After

Nicola, on the right, with Mugler muse, Rico. Photo by Mariano Vivanco.

that, my life was basically about trying to find an excuse to come to London. I lied to my parents and told them I was going to study architecture, but I didn’t study anything. I literally walked in the front door of the architecture school and then ran out of the back one to go clubbing for three years.

Were your parents underwriting this perpetual party of yours, or were you working?

I was working. My first proper job wasn’t until I started at the Pineal Eye when I was 22, but before then I worked at Vivienne Westwood on the weekends. I just stole loads of clothes.

Have you told her that’s what you did?

Yeah, she loves it.

That’s great! From there you went to Dazed & Confused, right? Was it there that you found out that being a stylist is a real job?

No way. Fuck. I hate the term “stylist.” I really, really hate it. I always refuse to be called a stylist, but then people say, “But you are a stylist!” and I say, “No, I’m not.” You know, that sort of witty repartee you get every day in the fashion world. I don’t just put clothes on people—I don’t even care about clothes, really. I’ve always seen myself as an art

director—someone whose job it is to create moods, oversee an overall image. With the best styling in the world, a shit image is still shit. I love being in control of the whole thing— the design, the styling, the photography, and then getting it into a magazine and the marketing and trend forecasting.

I love everything about fashion, so when I get labeled as a stylist—one tiny part of that world—it really pisses me off.

Noted! Did you abandon studying architecture because the field didn’t offer you this type of overarching control? Or was that direction kind of just a youthful ambition or even a simple, if harmless, lie?

No, not a lie, I’ve always loved architecture. I’ve always been into fashion, too, though just as a fan at the start— reading The Face is what made me want to come to London. You read that as a kid too, no?

Yeah. It was the only magazine I could find at my local newsstand that explained what the most exciting people were doing in the most interesting places in the world.

Yeah, it was a bible. I was thinking about that the other day. What are the kids doing now? The internet makes it so easy to get all the information you need and want. Without it we would never have found Rico, for example.

VICE 37

You don’t really know what you’re looking for as a kid, except that you want whatever you find to transport you into a world that’s vastly different from the one you’re living in.

You want to feel like you’re part of something, too, as though you’re part of a gang—even if you haven’t met anyone else in it yet. That’s what great magazines do. The kids now have so much more information at their disposal than they did in my day. They know old music, new music, who all the interesting designers are—if it’s happening, they know about it. Like everyone else, I think it’s great. But at the same time, when things become so easy they lose their value a little bit.

It’s nice to have everything so immediately accessible, but there’s definitely something to be said for the rewards of tracking down something that’s hard to find.

Yeah. It’s the same thing for sex and relationships too.

“Gaga made that stuff into a reality.

She gave a purpose to my jerking off.

She became the human form of all the pages of the magazines I was doing.”

How so with sex?

The ability to watch porn straightaway means that the times when you have actual physical intimacy with someone else aren’t so special. You just think, “I could have just done this on my own and I wouldn’t have had to shower or spend all that money on drinks,” you know? It ends up just being easier. The world is changing and it’s an exciting time to be experimenting with sex, fashion, and music.

In what ways are you doing this with Mugler, in particular?

That was what I was trying to put across in the Mugler video I made: Everything is so available and disposable that it’s about adding value to the things that you do. Making them three-dimensional. The clothes, Gaga’s music—it’s all about making the very best stuff available to everyone.

I’m not and never have been an elitist. I want everyone to get together, collaborate, and embrace what’s going on in the world, but I don’t want them to get bored with it. It’s another one of those fine lines.

I think that’s something that comes through in your work.

This isn’t work for me, it’s fun. It’s never felt like work.

When you started doing magazine work did you have to give up anything else?

When I started working with shops and magazines, I felt like it was my destiny. I never had proper training or assisted anyone. I completely learned from my own mistakes.

I got sacked from jobs. I didn’t know how to deal with clients. I had too much passion. There was always too much of myself in something and not enough of the client.

38 VICE

Were there ever any major repercussions or burned bridges?

I did the D&G show when I was a kid, and they fired me straight after because what I had done was no longer their vision—it had become mine. I treated it like the Nicola Show, but I guess that’s what young people do: ignore other people’s philosophies. Everyone thinks I’ve done great, but it was always a struggle. I have more experience now that I’ve come out the other side, but I still get bored with things too quickly and want to move on to whatever’s newest.

You mentioned the word destiny. Are there spiritual aspects to your work?

I only really started to be “spiritual” as a funny, jokey thing. Me and my friends used to go to fortune-tellers and stuff. That’s just my Japanese side. I have a couple of guys in Tokyo and New York, and I go see them or we talk on the phone and they look at my fears and we work through them. It’s kind of like therapy but using a psychic power.

Can you list some of those fears? Are they work-related?

No. Like I’ve said, what I do has never been work to me, and if all the companies and brands that I work for fired me I’d still call photographer friends to come round and shoot because it’s what I love. I don’t do this for money— it’s for fun. When it comes to work, I’m fearless, and that’s because I haven’t sacrificed anything to do what I’m doing.

It’s my hobby and the way I live—I’m not very competitive.

I’m very open, very connected to my fans and to my own existence. It’s more inclusive if you’re with a gang. Creativity is bouncing ideas around. I don’t come up with ideas by meditating. It’s about embracing things and finding ideas in music or art or whatever.

I notice that you’ve lost some weight.

Yeah, I’m trying to lose weight for the women’s show.

So you can walk the runway? [laughs] I don’t want to be a fat pig for those pictures. I’m doing acupuncture and meditating too.

With a guru and everything?

No, I just close my eyes and think about nothing for half an hour—just detach. I started by doing it for three minutes, then five minutes. It’s difficult to switch off but you can train yourself to do it.

Should we talk about Lady Gaga? The situation has changed massively from the beginning, when designers didn’t want her in their clothes. Do you remember who said she couldn’t wear their clothing?

I always loved her. I’m attracted to the freaks. People were so horrible to her. I can’t say who it was that said no, but of course I remember them.

Now I suppose you’re always hearing from those people.

They have reconsidered.

All the fucking time. McQueen was the only one at the beginning who loved her. He just said we could take whatever we wanted from his stock.

Do you think the Gaga project was a natural extension of what you and your group of young London compatriots were doing before she become so massive?

We didn’t think like that at all. We were just doing what we were doing. It was like jerking off—doing your own thing and being happy. Gaga made that stuff into a reality. She gave a purpose to my jerking off. She became the human form of all the pages of the magazines I was doing.

Now I’m doing something that actually exists! My ideas are walking around and talking to people.

Are you ever able to escape the maw of fashion? Is that even possible for someone in a position like yours?

I have lots of friends who aren’t in fashion. I’ve met a lot of crazy people who have struck me as pretentious, and I’m always conscious of not being one of them.

So is that at least part of the goal, to avoid being a fucker?

Is there any other catchall sort of goal?

Of course I want the whole world to love me and what I do. I know that’s impossible, but I’m idealistic. I try not to look at what people are saying on the internet because when you’ve put your heart and soul into something

it’s not nice to see people responding negatively. Even if they’re just some random schoolkid from Mexico. If a criticism is thought-out I try to take it into account, but it’s just better not to look. Now that I’m doing collections, there are critics at the shows. It’s terrifying.

Criticism hurts, but there’s nothing you can do about it. I don’t do mainstream, mass-market stuff, so of course I’m going to get criticised.

Do you ever consider what some people might call your legacy?

No! What the fuck are you talking about? You make me sound so old! I’d love to make an impression, but thoughts like that are a long way off.

OK, sheesh, I was just saying! Let’s switch the topic: Do you have a boyfriend?

Since the Mugler thing I get loads of power gays messaging me. It’s a totally new thing, though, so I’m reluctant to follow up. It’s difficult to tell who is into me and who is into Gaga or the lifestyle or status or whatever. I think I just need a boyfriend exactly as successful as me—James Franco or somebody.

VICE 39

Vera with Coco Chanel.

40 VICE

VERA BARRETO LEITE VALDEZ INTERVIEW BY ANDRÉ MALERONKA PORTRAITS BY FERNANDA NEGRINI Archival images courtesy of Frank Horvat and Willy Rizzo.

Special thanks to Danniel Rangel and Ana Sette.

era Valdez left Brazil as a teenager and began a career in Paris in the 1950s as a model for surrealist designer Elsa Schiaparelli. By the middle of what is one of the most important decades in the history of fashion, she was traveling the world presenting Christian Dior, and eventually serving as the favorite model of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who had just returned to postwar France to resume designing her line. Vera sat for Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, Willy Rizzo, and Frank Horvat and had sex with many famous and marvelous people, including filmmaker Louis Malle, who, along with director Bernardo Bertolucci, helped her flee Brazil after she was sent to prison on drug charges and tortured during the military dictatorship of the mid- to late 60s.

In Paris just after the war, though, Vera reigned over the nightlife scene, smoking opium with Jean Cocteau, forging a deep friendship with French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, and loving on everyone from a millionaire baron to actor Maurice Ronet.

As the figurehead of the legendary Les Blouson Chanel gang—a pack of roving Chanel models—she flittered amid the celebrity social circuit looking pretty, raising spirits, and doing everyone’s drugs. She was famous and posing naked for magazines before famous people knew they were supposed to do shit like that, and later she tinkered in drug dealing and worked as a bootlegger.

Today she is 75, one of Brazil’s finest stage actors, and is among the most spry and charming people we’ve ever talked to.

V

Vice: You were very young when you first left Brazil, right?

Vera Barreto Leite Valdez: I went to study in Europe because I flunked out—I think it was the first or second year of secondary school.

Were you some kind of rebel youth?

I didn’t think I was rebellious. I thought I was a little prude, although I was smoking weed at age 12. There was this friend of mine who was a little devil. We sat in the back of the class, and we smoked weed there. Back in the day there was no way a teacher would know what marijuana smelled like.

You fell in with the fun, bad kids.

It was then that my dad told me he was going to send me to Europe. I was already living with my mother, who was divorced when I was four. She was a total bohemian and my dad wasn’t. He sent me to live with my Portuguese family—my grandmother and two aunts. I was there for about two years. My mom moved us to Bordeaux and from there we went to Paris, where she worked at the Brazilian Embassy.

Did you start modeling immediately?

Someone asked me if I was a model, but I spoke horrible French back then. My mother told me, “I’ll explain later.”

VICE 41

This was right around the launch of Dior’s famous New Look collection, right? It is considered a revolutionary time in fashion.

After Schiaparelli I didn’t think it was all that different.

Dior was very much fashion. Schiaparelli wasn’t fashion— she was more like art. Dior was a factory, you know? It was another perspective. I had to punch the clock.

Why did you leave Dior?

The model Suzy Parker convinced me. She said, “This woman Coco Chanel is extraordinary,” and told me Chanel’s history. And I thought, “Hmm, I don’t think my mom is going to like the idea of me working with her.” But I went there and I met this figure. I’ll never forget: I was wearing a red coat that I had bought in a boutique in Saint Germain. I remember she told Suzy: “In spite of this red coat, I want to keep her.” From there on she always had a red tailleur in her collections. She copied the prêt-à-porter.

Did you two have a good relationship?

I was very young, and she was an elderly lady.

Right, she had stopped designing and left Paris during the war—she had only recently returned. You didn’t get along well?

Sometimes when I was naughty she would put me in time-out.

“You stay there, your back to us, facing the wall.” I loved that because I could hear the gossip. She would get angry when I hung out with “that crowd,” which was the journalists.

Les Blousons Chanel: Vera, on the right, with Mimi d’Arcangues.

When she showed me in a magazine what a model really was, I marveled. I said, “I want that.” I remember my mom asked, “But don’t you want to go to Sorbonne a bit, maybe learn some dead language?” [laughs] I said, “No, I want to be a model.” I was eventually taken to Elsa Schiaparelli.

The surrealist designer? Your mother agreed? You were barely even a teenager.

She thought I wouldn’t be accepted, so she agreed. Later she confessed, “You, such a skinny thing…”

What did you do with Schiaparelli?

I did Schiaparelli’s last collection. She was a fantastic seamstress. I used to leave her studio in a costume—she’d lend me clothes.

Were there other girls as well?

It was me, Brigitte Bardot, who was a photo model, and another lady called Victoire. There wasn’t such a thing as a young model at the time—especially daughters of people working at the embassies.

People say Schiaparelli was one of the first people to understand that skinny models wear clothes better. Is that why she liked you?

Yes. Then after Schiaparelli closed, a colleague told me, “I’m going to take you to Dior.”

42 VICE

She sounds ageist.

She’d fire me every time I’d do something wrong or when someone complained about me. It was great because I earned good money, and then a week later she would ask, “Where’s Vera? Find her!” And then I would go back and raise my fee. The accountants couldn’t believe it—I wasn’t legal. Chanel thought I was very chic. She’d say, “How do you also want her to do her papers? She has to wake up early, poor girl. She went there twice and stood in line for hours!” She liked that I was rebellious.

When did you leave Chanel?

I think the last show I did for her was in ’71.

Was that the last show before she died?

It was. Just before that I was in Brazil. I had a daughter, she was eight months old, and Chanel called me back. I remember this show well. I was in full lactation—my breasts were dripping.

You returned to Brazil to have a baby?

I would always come to Brazil. Chanel and I would fight and I would go back… It was a very long, back-and-forth relationship.

What was your relationship with the photographers you worked with at the time? Willy Rizzo, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton—some massive names.

Willy was very close. He was a photographer who loved the night, the models, fashion. He was delicious. He was just like us. Avedon was distant—he was very cruel with the models.

He could leave you for hours in the same position, and you couldn’t move. He was already a star. It was very good to work with Newton. I have good pictures with him. Willy at that time was working for Paris Match, doing fashion journalism. I would hang out in that environment, with journalists and filmmakers. I was always with the intellectualised gang.

But you were also a member of the group of pretty girls known as Les Blousons Chanel.

Yes. It was because of the leather jackets, Marlon Brando, and all those American cinema people. We would always go everywhere dressed in Chanel, all wearing classic tailleurs. We were the models among acquaintances, so they started calling us that. But that little gang was hardcore, you know? There was opium all the time. I had a real relationship with opium in Paris. First it was tea with hash cakes. I will never forget that—it was Moroccan. I worked as a model during the day and partied at night.

Did it end with opium?

In Brazil in the late 60s, during the dictatorship, that’s when we started with lysergic drugs. But during my exile in Paris, for instance, it was completely… even Chanel herself was addicted to morphine.

By this time you’d already had your “sexual awakening”?

We used to leave Schiaparelli’s and stay all night long in a gin joint. I started dating [Brazilian filmmaker] Ruy Guerra, who was my first boyfriend. Ruy Guerra popped my cherry [laughs]. That was the sexual awakening, like almost any other girl. It was the boyfriend, the night, the liberated mother.

Your mom was somehow involved with the start of your sex life? Did I miss something?

Guerra and I were like 20, and she would take us to the tranny houses in Pigalle. The only thing she didn’t take me to watch was explicit sex, but I didn’t have much curiosity in that. I liked strip tease—I thought it was beautiful.

I thought it was funny that guys were completely amazed by it, as if for them sex was completely forbidden. There was no repression for me at home. My mom living in Paris, away from her entire family—she had the weight of that on her.

What do you mean?

Her brother was a journalist and ambassador. Her dad was a judge and diplomat. My father’s father was a governor in Guinea during the colonial era. So when my mother left Brazil and went away to Europe, I think she was envisioning a lot of freedom. It’s the necessity of a divorced woman. I didn’t suffer through my childhood, because she just didn’t care. My education was always very liberated. So sex for me was also very free, normal, and healthy.

What were the Pigalle strip joints to you?

Damn, it was naked women! My sexual initiation was completely free. I never had any problem, you know? I’d fuck easily.

When did you meet Louis Malle?

We went to a club, during a return to Chanel in Paris in the early 60s, and I had just seen A Very Private Affair.

We were sitting at the table and everyone started commenting on the movie. I said something like, “For Christ’s sake, that guy is so square!” I started talking about the movie and this guy was encouraging me to go on. Then someone kicked me under the table and said, “He’s the director of that movie!” I’ll never forget Malle’s face—he shrunk in his chair when I found out. Then we became good friends. Very good friends. It was great to be his friend—to fuck him and go out and hear all the gossip of other women who were in love with him. All the girls wanted to be actresses.

Vera at a sitting with Frank Horvat.

Sounds fun!

This was at another time of crisis in fashion for me. I had just had a fight with the old hag Chanel, and at Guy Laroche’s apartment I told Malle, “I don’t want to play mannequin anymore. What do I do?” Malle said, “Become an actress!”

Did you jump at the opportunity?

I said, “Oh, no. Everybody in my family is an actor. No.” He said, “I have a new project based on a book. You read it while I write the script. Then you can start.” So we went to a ski lodge in Gstaad and we started to make Le Feu Follet [The Fire Within]. Nice, huh? He asked, “What are you going to do?” I told him, “Oh, the costumes—I’ll dress the men and the women too.” He said, “OK, but how are we going to pay you?”

How about with money!

I wasn’t legal. And during that time when French cinema was so radical, the film syndicate was ferocious. “But how are we going to pay Vera, how’s that going to work?” he’d ask. And there were also the credits to deal with.

What do you mean? You couldn’t be listed on the credits because you were illegal?

I said, “Fuck the credits, I don’t care.” All the costumes were Chanel—everything was on loan and fixed in that way. I played a role, but that was only because I had seVICE 43

I didn’t know what was inside. It was at the airport, and it was the navy that arrested me. Then they went to check out who I was. Everybody in my family had either been arrested or exiled. They figured out who I was and I was arrested by DOI-CODI [the Brazilian intelligence and repression agency during the military government].

I was tortured.

My God. There’s this whole dark side of our dictatorship’s history.

It was very violent. I think I was imprisoned for a month.

After that I was in a rehabilitation center for nearly a year.

I was very disturbed. I had panic attacks. I felt I was being chased all the time.

How did you eventually get out of Brazil?

You had to pay a lot to leave Brazil, you know? And I didn’t have it. So Bertolucci sent a letter from Italy calling me to work with him and Malle. I got a visa and left.

I left through Bahia [a Brazilian state], because back then the government couldn’t know—they didn’t have all that modern stuff.

lected the actors and I was crazy for the actor who played the main role, Maurice Ronet. Malle told me, “You have to have an affair with him, because he drinks like a beast.

I don’t want this alcoholic missing any shooting days.” I said: “With great pleasure, of course!” [laughs] Did you enjoy costuming?

I didn’t like it. I love cinema—I think it’s interesting. But I wanted to learn about it, so I wanted to do many things.

I selected the actors and had to play a retarded character because I forgot to choose someone for that role. It was like that. I would produce, from the steak tartare to the costumes to choosing the actress to giving my opinion on everything.

But you always continued to model. Back in Brazil you posed for a nude spread for Fair Play magazine around this time.

[Brazilian cartoonist] Ziraldo called me and said, “Vera, you should pose nude. There’s only hookers here, but if you do it the other girls will follow!” I was married at the time, and my husband never forgave me. But then he photographed all my friends naked for Fair Play! He didn’t forgive my photo shoot. It was shot at [Brazilian writer] Rubem Braga’s penthouse. My copies always vanished. I wanted to show it to my friends but I could never find a copy at home. He would rip them all up.

Was it something Chanel had done that brought you back to Brazil this time?

There was the fucking military coup of ’64, and my entire family was arrested. I had come back to Brazil and started the battle of getting them out. That’s when I came back to Brazil permanently.

So you could get your family out of prison?

Yeah. Then I started getting involved with the theater people. In Paris I had done the two movies with Louis Malle, so when I got here I did some movies with directors from São Paulo—Ruy’s friends.

You came back to Brazil but then went right back in exile.

Why? Because they caught me with cocaine! They caught me with a Chanel purse and they checked me completely.

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What did you do at that time in Paris?

I did another movie with Malle. But I didn’t do much. It was the heroin period. I really went for it. Some friends sold coke and we survived a little bit like that. The daily drug stuff—you buy some here, sell a bit there.

But eventually you received amnesty and were able to return to Brazil for good. How was this homecoming?

It was hard. We were traumatised. Exile is terrible. It was tough because all our partners were very depressed and it was hard to communicate with people here.

What did you do?

I got into [polemical playwright] Zé Celso.

You started acting in Celso’s Teatro Oficina? How did that come about?

Well, I come from a theater family. My aunt and my mother created modernism in Brazilian theater. Zé Celso captivated me. You can’t have anything as liberated as him. When I saw his plays in the 60s, we were living under the crazy dictatorship, the days of our destruction.

So you’ve continued acting for him to this day. People say he’s fairly brutal to work with. Is it a struggle?

It is. A colossal one. He’s a monster, a genius, and a dictator director—some days he just wakes up like that. And now he’s kind of cuckoo too, so sometimes we’re in the same scene for five, six hours. But because of my age he decided to be even more powerful, very dominant, and it sometimes ends up drowning me. So we get thrashed. Outside of Brazil maybe no one knows who Zé Celso really is, but by all the other directors he’s considered one of the biggest in the world.

What about fashion? Do you follow it?

No. I always saw it as work.

You aren’t in least bit curious to see what a Chanel show is like nowadays?

It’s not like it used to be. It’s a circus-like spectacle. Really, all those automated things. There’s no personality anymore. So I think it’s beautiful, theatrical, but it’s indifferent, right?

P h o t o g r a p h y : C o n a n W h i t e h o u s e

W I N T E R

1 1

-

O N L I N E

N O W

W W W . A F E N D S . C O M

DOs

Wait a second, does ice skating secretly rule? I get that it’s just one step away from both professional dance and beauty pageants, but homos are usually our canaries in the party mine and this picture looks like more fun than Bolan and Bowie at Studio 54 circa tag-teaming Mick Jagger.

Being a regular means more than just showing up once or twice a week and fading into the woodwork. (Especially when the bar is the hands-down best bar in New York City, aka the World.) You’ve got to dedicate yourself full-time to synching your rhythms and absorbing so much of the spirit of the place into your personality that you actually become the bar.

Well aren’t we a scrumptious little dawber?

Aren’t we a dinky little doozer, dancing around the kitchen in our wee black undies?

Aren’t we a diddly widdle doodlebee? Aren’t we a cheeky widdle monkeybug, pat-pat patacaking some little patties to put in our wum-wum? God I am hard right now.

All red-blooded American males get megawood for girls with guns, so if you don’t want to fuck this cutie you must be some kinda brownie hound or neo maxi homo dweeb or somethin’.

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This guy’s like a toned-down version of the last DO, where his dinky-dandling days are over and now he just gets up on the bar every so often when the mood is right and does a little Pee-wee dance that brings a tear of fond remembrance to all the old-timers’ eyes.

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DON’Ts

Sexual mores have come a long way in the last 100 years, but we’re not at “Honk honk how are you?” quite yet. There may be some emancipated lesbian communes in Oregon where this kind of salutation floats the boat, but right now you’re just providing another textbook illustration of why your friends call you “Liability Andy.”

“You Americans think is funny when Mikhail is saying ‘make party,’ but if you ever seen him actually make a party in festival car park, airport bathroom, on metro, or even just by self in Moscow apartment alone, then you would understand is not so funny.”

What the hell is this? The bodystocking simultaneously rubbing against the lycra shirt and velveteen housepants wasn’t gagging enough eyeballs, so you ripped the drawstring off a theater curtain to add a kinetic flourish?

You look like something my dad is angry at my mum for buying at the arts fair.

Isn’t it weird that the same rich people who don’t want you to say “blowjob” on TV have no problem with their tween daughters regularly straddling a giant, phallic, hymenbusting surrogate dick? What’s up with that?

We don’t let boys hang out with giant pairs of tits. We definitely don’t let boys spend all afternoon huffing their tits’ ass.

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Remember that first swell of confidence when you were 13 and started to be friends with girls and get into music and were like, “Fuck what people think, fuck what TV thinks, there’s no such thing as ‘trouble,’ this town’s my oyster and reality is whatever I choose to make of it.” You have no idea how close you were to a daily holocaust of bullying.

,

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DOs

Sorry ladies, I know you like talking about “buns” because it makes you feel like a saucy oversexed aunt, but we’re taking back the butt. We just appreciate it more. It took my girlfriend 15 years of fucking to realize that guys’ assholes tighten when they come, meanwhile I wrote my dissertation on Perineal Tremoring in the Urogential Triangle from memory. The things gays could tell you about the ass would be indistinguishable from magic.

Ditto being turned on by squnching up your ass and tits into weird materials like rubber and spandex. Remember in Kids in the Hall when Scott was the mum and said, “I do everything short of greeting you at the door in Saran Wrap”? It was sad because it’s something no woman ever voluntarily does outside a “Happy birthday, I guess this is what makes you horny” sense.

Why is Cosmo still telling their readers they have to buy blowjob lessons and body oil and anal beads to “please their man” when all we really want are things they’ve already got, like mishapen areolas and those weird bruises right at the crease of their ass.

On second thought, maybe it’s smart to limit the No Pants to once a year. We don’t need to be trying to get shit done with asses everywhere bouncing all over the place and slapping us in our slobbering faces like a living R. Crumb drawing. Just an occasional taste is fine.

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When Australian girls saw videos of No Pants Day in New York, instead of going “Ha,” they said, “Bluff called.” Now everyone is in permanent morning-after-sex mode with wads of cash and spare sunglasses shoved down the back of their underwear, and the only thing keeping the forest of boners down are the omnipresent flip-flops.

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MIKE NOGA THE THE PHANTOM BAND BALLADEER HUNTER THE WANTS

DON’Ts

“And I said, ‘Look, I don’t know where you’re coming from, but I’ve been installing TU47s since you were in grade school and if you don’t start with the intake shaft the second you turn that on you’re going to have a jammed blade.’ But no, we try it Mike’s way and guess what?

Jammed blade. So now I gotta uncouple the whole back assemblage and I got the guy who runs the place barking up my ass ’cause he thought we were going to be out of there by 3 and on top of that Mike switches back to that station that’s always got ‘Miss You’ going and it’s like, man, I don’t want to listen to fag-era Stones while I got my hand stuck down an 20-centimeter section of tubing, especially with my wrist still gummed up from that boat wreck at your sister’s place. But at least I got the satellite radio fixed on the van so I’m in control when w...”

The scary part here is I don’t think this guy is even necessarily whipped. I think he’s your standard, no-maintenance sofa dad who went with the flow a little too hard and is just now realizing that “Please wear that shirt I like” morphed into some sort of mentally ill “Donny & Marie Live in Miami” situation years ago.

What’s wrong with this? Dude’s at least two generations removed from the folks who stole the Indians’ land and you’re saying he can’t wear just a little of their ceremonial garb to show what a free spirit he is? What a gay crock of PC bullshit. Next you’re going to say my German cousins shouldn’t dress up as Anne and Otto Frank for Roskilde this year.

Oh, now that’s just great, Ira. I spend the last two DON’Ts trying to make this big point on behalf of your people and you’re on Etsy selling, what are these, Ugg moccasins?

Really? Uggasins?! Forget it, buddy. You’re on your own.

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OK, how about if we spend a lot more money on it and take it into cornball heterosexual fantasyland so it’s like a Trail of Tears version of Mandingo? That should be better, right?

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NEIL STR AUSS bestselling author of THE GAME and THE DIRT, is a rock journalism veteran who has spent years interviewing dysfunctional, hilarious, confused and downright damaged celebrities. This is his ultimate collection.

IN EVERYONE LOVES YOU WHEN YOU’RE DEAD he makes Lady Gaga cry, tries to keep Mötley Crüe out of jail and gets kidnapped by Courtney Love; shoots guns with Ludacris, takes a ride with Neil Young and goes to church with Tom Cruise and his mother; spends the night with Trent Reznor, reads the mind of Britney Spears and finds religion with Stephen Colbert; gets picked on by Led Zeppelin, threatened by the mafia and serenaded by Leonard Cohen; goes drinking with Bruce Springsteen, dining with Gwen Stefani and hot tubbing with Marilyn Manson; talks glam with David Bowie, drugs with Madonna, death with Johnny Cash and sex with Chuck Berry; gets molested by the Strokes, in trouble with Prince and in bed with… you’ll find out who inside.

E B O O K A N D PA P E R B AC K N OW AVA I L A B L E . T E X T P U B L I S H I N G . C O M . AU

ROBOTHUGS PHOTOS BY ALIYA NAUMOFF STYLIST: ANNETTE LAMOTHE-RAMOS Photographer’s Assistant: Demetrius Fordham Stylist’s Assistant: Bobby Doherty Makeup and Hair: Lisa Aharon at Kate Ryan using Nars Makeup and Hair Assistant: Alsenio Espinal Models: Omahyra at Muse, Shaun Ross at Karin, Wikter at Next, Noma and Ibrahim at Red. Special thanks to George Brown Studio

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2025

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(l-r) ZAK hoodie, agnès b. sweater, Nike hoodie, Jeremy Scott for Adidas ObyO pants, agnès b. pants, Supra sneakers, Pedro Gerab/“Mojo” for New Era hat; Balmung coat, agnès b. jumpsuit, Asher Levine sneakers, Alexandre Herchcovitch for New Era hat; Telfar sweatshirt, Wood Wood shirt, studio_805 shorts, Asher Levine sneakers, Brixton hat, a-morir by Kerin Rose sunglasses

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Studio_805 hoodie and pants, Palladium boots, AND_i mask

VICE 57

Jeremy Scott for Adidas ObyO jacket, Bebe Sport jumpsuit, Dr. Martens boots, Houssein Jarouche for New Era hat, Delphine-Charlotte Parmentier necklace, AND_i belt and cuff, nOir bracelet

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Jeremy Scott for Adidas ObyO trenchcoat and pants, Nike hoodie, agnès b. for Opening Ceremony shirt, Vans sneakers, AND_i mask

VICE 59

Topman hoodie, Asher Levine tank top and boots, Henrik Vibskov pants, Diesel belt, Felipe Morozini for New Era hat, a-morir by Kerin Rose sunglasses

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Balmung dress, Supra sneakers, a-morir by Kerin Rose sunglasses, nOir bracelet.

VICE 61

Jeremy Scott for Adidas ObyO jacket, Quiksilver top, Calvin Klein pants and boots, a-morir by Kerin Rose mask

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TOMATO FACE PHOTOS BY JARED O’SULLIVAN STYLIST: LARRY LEONG

VICE 67

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Johnny wears: RVCA shirt, Death Killer jeans

VICE 69

Yumi wears American Apparel singlet, American Apparel shorts, Vans shoes; Mark wears: Alife crew neck sweater, RVCA shirt, Otto jeans, Alife shoes

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Haruka wears: H&M top, Maerican Apparel jeans, Vans shoes

VICE 71

Jacqui wears: American Apparel shirt, American Apparel pants, models own shirts; Jordan wears: Alife tee, Alife sweater, Paul Smith pants

NOTES FROM FASHION DON’TS WEEK IN MILAN

BY BOB ODENKIRK

I’m in Milan! Woo-hoo!! Vice sent me here to “cover” the spring Fashion DON’Ts collections and I think I just spotted Dustin Diamond being mobbed by wealthy hipsters!

Every December, the bad-taste-makers gather here in Milan, sponsored by resale shops, magazines, and unknown benefactors (rumored to be hipsters). They are in pursuit of the “perfectly wrong,” the type of clothing that has grown the Fashion DON’Ts industry into a multibillion-dollar market. At the show, ironically celebrated celebs ruled: Eric Estrada couldn’t keep up with the invitations, neither could David Liebe Hart or The Guy Who Used to Be Yahoo Serious.

I was lucky enough to get to spend a few days with Kip Lagerfield, whispered to be the second cousin of Karl. Kip was in the middle of prepping for his Fashion DON’Ts show, sponsored by the Salvation Army. In his trademark black bike shorts, calf-high white socks with red stripes, black dress shoes, broken glasses, and Christmas sweater, Kip is both the touchstone and cutting edge of the ironically worst-dressed world. Before getting a sneak peek at his collection, I had to sign a confidentiality agreement with a “no-LOL” clause appended (laughing “out loud” at bad fashion is considered “boorish”); however, it was also explained to me that I was required to smirk.

Sipping Yoo-Hoo like it was mother’s milk, Kip was a whirlwind of enthusiasms and inspirations, as he searched for clothes that were in his words “perfectly wrong.” Kip’s Fashion DON’Ts collection this year, sponsored by Vice, was held in a public bathroom that had been “shitted up” by the designer himself. Last year, he famously introduced flip-flops married to legwarmers and it was a smash, putting the new industry on the map and igniting a firestorm

72 VICE

of delight in the spoiled hipster community. Kip spoke in emphatic declarations about the elusive “wrongness” he was searching for.

“Inappropriate leggings is sooo last year,” Kip declared, but quickly added, “However, stained thermal underwear will never go out of style.” He said that he looks for stains that “could be urine, especially around the collar!”

“A metal beer-can hat is my guiding light this season! I am trying for a train wreck! I want nothing less than a tencar pileup!” he shouted at no one in particular, and then, quick as a fart, his thoughts shifted and he screamed, “I want to see tiny clothes on fat people! Now!” In a calm-before-the-storm moment prior to his show opening, Kip was in a reflective mood: “I want to go past ludicrous, deep into troubling,” he wished aloud. “I want people who see this year’s collection to say, ‘Nooo way!’ and try to tear out their eyeballs.” Then he exhaled and calmly stated, “I can’t… I won’t… settle for just plain ‘fugly’…

It’s not in me.”

He didn’t have to. Kip’s collection this season was greeted with warm applause and snide remarks in equal measure from a small crowd that included Cor Bancalli and Doke Munstrew, two wealthy bitches from New York who have super-odd names. His showing was dubbed “fuckin’ insane—a stunner” in the New York Tittler. For me, the high point was a pair of herringbone slacks topped by a faded Laker’s jersey, which the website Look at That Douche dubbed “unbefuckinglievable.” Finally, the coup de grâce: On the way out of the show I overheard a fat guy in a Speedo and deck shoes with kneepads on his bare knees say it was so wrong that it almost made him want to quit trying to look like a dumbass forever. High praise, indeed.

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HAMILTON’S PHARMACOEPIA

BY HAMILTON MORRIS

HEROIN HABERDASHERY AND COCAINE COBBLING The drug war is responsible for innumerable atrocities. The unjust laws it comprises have turned law-abiding Americans into criminals, dealers into doctors, and doctors into arbiters of our cognitive liberty. Families are broken, prisons overfilled, and public health immeasurably compromised. But of the many casualties of this failed experiment, none has had greater an impact than banning the use of psychoactive textiles.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” and by that virtue should protect my right as an American citizen to wear a hat made of cocaine. Yet that is a right I have been repeatedly denied. There was once a time when consenting adults had the freedom to wear a hat made of cocaine with pomp and dignity. But those days, my friends, have long since passed.

In our very own New York City, the owner of a terry-cloth bathrobe had his rightful property stolen simply because it was saturated with a concentrated solution of freebase heroin and cocaine. Aside from the heroin imparting an attractive colour reminiscent of dried urine, it also played an obvious utilitarian role. It is widely known that when one steps out of a hot and steamy shower, the parsimonious application of talcum powder can go great lengths toward preventing chafing and irritation of the skin. Yet talcum powder is far from benign; indeed, excess inhalation can lead to a host of dermatological and pulmonary ailments... and so it comes as no surprise that many of us have abandoned talc in our post-ablutionary routines for more health-conscious choices like heroin.

Specifically, China White heroin offers many of the absorbent properties of talcum powder without the risks of pulmonary talcosis. So when we apply heroin directly to our bathrobes in order to expedite the drying process at some point in the future, we will have committed a crime? Last time I checked, the true crime was putting on one’s clothing before the skin has been thoroughly dried.

Clockwise from top left: Opium-starched blankets from Laos, a heroin-insulated unisex dashiki from Ghana, Colombian suitcase liner made of a 52-percent heroin and lidocaine polymer matrix, bootleg Vans AV Eras with heroin soles from Ohio, a pair of heroin insoles from Oklahoma City, a heroin-infused terry-cloth robe from New York, and a Peruvian baseball cap made of cocaine.

All photos from the Microgram Bulletin, published by the US Drug Enforcement Agency’s Office of Forensic Sciences.

South Americans have also been robbed of their sartorial rights. One Peruvian chemist and haberdasher produced a silicone-based material that can contain as much as 47 percent cocaine hydrochloride while maintaining its structural integrity. This wonder material was used to produce absolutely stunning baseball caps, wet-suits, and suitcases. Yet we are deprived of a fashionable innovation because of cocaine’s completely unrelated history as a psychoactive drug? Perhaps the regulatory authorities are unaware that melanoma rates are skyrocketing.

If more Americans protected their skin from the assaults of ultraviolet light with a sporty, lightweight cocaine hat, the skin-cancer epidemic could be overcome once and for all.

The history books may suggest that cannabis is a powerful psychoactive plant, yet they neglect to discuss its applications in shoemaking. For insoles, how does compacted hashish compare with, say, Dr. Scholl’s massaging gel? Could it be that innocent men and women falsely labeled “drug smugglers” were simply taking advantage of the shock-absorbent orthopedic properties of this fine plant? A marijuana-based shoe provides excellent support and can prevent both pronation and arch collapse, yet the words of concerned podiatrists fall upon deaf ears in our nation’s government.

Native Americans can wear their traditional headdresses with pride, yet a Colombian must tremble in pyrexial discomfort as he boards a plane with a traditional heroin suitcase liner? Hypocrisy. Laotian children must tearfully sleep in the cold because their opium-starched blankets were seized by the fashion police? And the traditional quilted Ghanaian unisex heroin smock will be a mere memory or, worse, forgotten.

One day, brothers and sisters, things will be different, and I will sustainedly look you in the eye, shake your hand wearing an evening glove made of a high-durability PCP matrix, and say, “You look great.”

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Josh Kalis

Now Airing

THE LEARNIN’ CORNER: NANOTEXTILES

BY PROFESSOR JUAN HINESTROZA AS TOLD TO ALEX DUNBAR

With any luck, in the not-so-distant future our clothes will be engineered on the nanoscale. This will allow us to integrate textiles with unprecedented properties. Scientists can already produce tiny swatches of nanofabric by manipulating a material’s surface and adding nanoparticles, nanorods, and nanotubes, but wearable garments may soon be a reality.

Using nanotechnology, manufacturers will someday be able to develop textiles that repel water, kill bacteria, and conduct electricity. They will also be able to make clothing that detects the wearer’s heart rate, pulse, and blood pressure, as well as electrically active clothing that can change temperature. Nano-engineered bedsheets could monitor your vital signs while you’re asleep or unconscious without the tubes and other cumbersome equipment medical professionals use today.

Another example is athletic wear embedded with sensors that can give the wearer all sorts of feedback about his or her workout.

It is currently impossible to manufacture these types of garments because there is still so much to understand about the science of nanoparticles. Scientists at Cornell, however, are developing the technology that may one day serve as the basis of large scale nanotextile manufacturing.

By coating small amounts of cotton fiber with nanoparticles, and making this natural polymer electrically conductive, these scientists can graft the nanoparticles to the cotton. The graft is performed layer by tiny layer, particle by particle, all while maintaining tight control over the distance between individual particles. First a negative group is created on the surface of the nanoparticles, and then a positive charge is injected into the polymer.

Finally, the positive charge itself assembles with its negative counterpart at the molecular level. In other words, it’s assembled one molecule at a time. Eventually, this technique creates a layer of about 200 nanometers on top of the cotton fiber, allowing the swatch to conduct electricity. Of course, something this small cannot be seen, touched, or sensed.

Working at such a tiny scale presents challenges when it comes to actually probing the surface of a material at the nanoscale. Using a new technique called Acoustic Force Atomic Microscopy, the Cornell team is able to understand nanoscale topography. AFAM involves sending a sound wave through a given sample and measuring the speed of the wave on the other side. It can be used to determine which part of a fiber is stronger than the other, down to

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Photo courtesy of Cornell’s Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory

Juan Hinestroza is an assistant professor of fiber science and directs the Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory at the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. His field of research falls at the cross section of fiber and polymer science and nanotechnology. This makes Professor Hinestroza one of the world’s top authorities on nanotextiles. Below, he tells us how a regular ole pair of pants may one day be able to prevent disease, tell you how much longer you should be on the treadmill, and automatically wipe your ass. Just kidding about that last one (we hope).

plus or minus 15 nanometers, while other techniques are in the order of microns or millimeters.

One way to create individual atom deposits on the surface of a textile is a process called Atomic Layer Deposition. It’s the same technique used to create the electric circuits in your computer or cell phone. Using ALD, scientists can create metals and metal oxides that are only a few angstroms thick. These materials are extremely clean, and because the process takes place in a vacuum it’s possible to coat very intricate shapes and place a single atom on a particular fiber. For instance, scientists at Cornell developed a fabric that effectively fights many kinds of harmful bacteria by tightly and precisely arranging the particles of a nanotextile. On exposure to the fabric, only a fraction of the bacteria survives.

There is also massive potential for nanotextiles as a medical tool. An example is a type of fabric that detects specific allergens or toxic material, which could protect people from unhealthy environments. Another is a garment that could tell patients exactly when to take their medicine—or even provide the medication through the textiles.

Then there are myriad applications to the world of fashion. Imagine clothing that creates colour by manipulating light—using no dye whatsoever. It could change from blue to red to yellow just by controlling the space between particles. If you get sick of a particular black shirt— abracadabra—your shirt turns white. The implications for fashion are limitless.

To learn more about nanotextiles go to nanotextiles.human.cornell.edu.

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THE CUTE SHOW PAGE!

BY ELLIS JONES

For our third installment of The Cute Show Page! we wanted to feature dogs with eyebrows drawn or stuck on them. Why? Because pups look ten times more intense and 50 times more adorable than you ever thought possible when this happens. They instantly become the happiest dog in the world… or the most concerned. I love it. The first time I saw it done was at a friend’s party. I followed her dog, Andy, around for 30 minutes watching everyone’s reactions. It was a hoot.

PS: If you want to try this on your own dog, nix the Sharpie. A nice eyeliner or simple construction-paperwith-a-little-bit-of-Scotch-tape setup is an easy and safe way to brow down with your dog.

Thanks to our cuddly models Gus, Pip, Cole, Patton, Oliver, and Andy for being such good sports.

Watch The Cute Show on VBS.TV. It’s cute!

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