Introducing the 2014 Fashion Issue

Right in time for New York Fashion Week, we’re unleashing our annual Fashion Issue to the internet. In case the leather gimp on the cover doesn’t make it blatantly obvious, the 2014 Fashion Issue is sex-themed. This gentleman was shot by none other than Robert Mapplethorpe (cue the angels).  In addition to the cover, we’ve got an entire portfolio of his Polaroids inside.

Before you grab the Jergens or your pink vibrating Rabbit, you should know that there are only two pairs of tigolbitties and absolutely no boners in this issue. Instead of giving everyone exactly what they’d expect from a sex-themed issue of VICE, we decided to take a more refined approach. It would have been a hell of a lot easier to fill 132 pages with soft-core porn, but we wanted to focus on fashion as a form of self-expression and sexual freedom and to explore the role it plays in our lives. This is an issue dedicated to and featuring photographers, designers, icons, and everyday people who’ve helped blur the lines between what is acceptable versus what we’re taught is taboo. It's more social experiment than whack rag.

So how on Earth did we fulfill our mission without coming off like a bunch of pretentious jerks? To give you the SparkNotes:

- We photographed women wearing some of the more restricting and fetishized trends of the last few decades; shot sexy nuns decked out in latex and lace; photographed a rendezvous between two classy ladies as an homage to Duran Duran.

- Our own Wilbert L. Cooper examined the connection between masculinity and fashion among black men; we interviewed the legendary Kansai Yamamoto, the man responsible for helping David Bowie to create his gender-bending Ziggy Stardust persona; Richard Kern shot boys as girls and girls as boys.

- We defended female body hair, because, yes, hairy women can be sexy; we explored the emotional baggage that is often attached to dainty, wonderful, old lingerie; and we even got our new friend Glenn O’Brien to school everyone in the history of sex and fashion.

We'll let you explore the rest of it yourselves. You’ll be enlightened and informed. Hey, you’ll probably even find something to rub one out to.

Enjoy, bitches!

Thanks again to the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation for their contribution to this issue. Look for the print mag at a store or boutique near you, but we know it lasts about an entire day on the shelves before it's gone. You'll just want to go ahead and subscribe. If you're fancy and you have an iPad, download our FREE app, because then you get a whole bunch of extra stuff like extended interviews, more pictures, and all that hot noise.