Starting around now until whenever the asshole who keeps stealing all of our magazines and selling them on eBay saunters in, our 2012 Fashion Issue will be sitting pretty in bars, clothing, and music stores all around the United States. Time was, we would post the whole issue on this website at once so that you greedy bastards could read it all in one gluttonous sitting. But now, heeding the advice of our marketing gurus, we're going to be putting the issue up article by article, feeding you one new piece per day like a mamma bird dropping a worm into her baby bird's mouth. The reason we're doing this, of course, is that we want you to come back to this site every day, boosting our traffic and making us look more popular to people who wear suits for a living.
Anyway, this month's cover was shot by Bryan Derballa, a bearded photo-taker who shoots a lot of our parties and also gigantic metal penises. I sat down with Bryan for a little chat about the pooch on the front of our new issue.
VICE: Who’s that adorable little guy on the cover of our magazine this month? I can’t look at him without laughing.
Bryan: That is Annette’s dog (VICE fashion editor). His name is Finn, and Asher Levine made that outfit specifically for him. He's an Italian greyhound. He looks ashamed.
I think he was ashamed. We did the shoot as quickly as we could, but he was tired and cold. He was better than some of the other dogs. His outfit fit him nicely and he wore it well. The other dogs couldn't wait to get out of theirs. Do you think PETA will have anything to say about this shoot?
I don't know. That did kind of go through my mind, but people dress their dogs up in crazy stuff all the time. Just because this one is a little more visually deviant doesn't make it different than dressing a dog up in a Christmas sweater. I mean, I’m a vegan and don’t wear leather.
From "Onion Patch"What do you think about those people who dress their dogs up in sweaters and other clothes? Do you respect those kinds of people?
My little sisters used to paint my dog's nails. He was a boy dog. I've never had a pet that I've adored like some people have. I feel like it could be a really special thing to dress your dog up if you had those feelings for your animal. So, no, I don't have any bold criticisms for people who dress up their dogs. Were the dogs pretty well behaved for the most part?
No! They were terrible. They were all psychopaths. The bartender dog at Humps, the strip club, kept jumping over the bar and attacking the other dogs, and the other dogs were so afraid they wouldn't get close to him. He looks mean. He's eyeing the Pomeranian by the stripper pole.
He was very aggressive. The dogs never looked where they were supposed to. The best shots were when they would put their heads down and start eating trash, or dig their heads into the trashcan. Then it felt a little more like, all right, these are the hobo dogs. Did they poop on set?
That happened a couple times. We were there for a long time. There was a lot of peeing going on, but I didn't have to clean up any of it. I think I rolled in it, though, when I was lying on the floor trying to get the best angles. Gross. Have you ever been to Pumps, the human equivalent of Humps?
I have not been to Pumps. I don’t spend enough time at the strip club.
From "Carved of Clay: Life Along the Amazon River"I heard you made a skate video one time about ollieing over an animated turd.
[laughs] How did you dig that up? Yeah, the reason I got to shoot this cover goes way back, actually. I started as an intern at VICE like five years ago, when VBS was first starting out. Jake Burghart was one of the senior editors, and I showed him a skateboard video that I made with Danilo Parra, who is also a VICE shooter, on a really nice February day in San Francisco. We went skating all day and made a video just like we would have when we were 15 years old. We came home and started editing it, and after I made my edit I asked Danilo if he thought we should tweak it. I came back about 15 minutes later and he had keyframed these Photoshop turds coming out of all the pedestrians’ butts and flying all over the place. He called it Sunshine in Brown Town. So I showed Jake that video when I was trying to get an internship at VICE to show him that I could film and edit. He loved it, and I’ve had a relationship with the magazine ever since.So that’s how you got your foot in the door, huh?
Yep, turds.
From "Before We Land"You’re one of our Employees of the Month this month. Congratulations! On your list of life goals, how high up was this one?
Employees of the Month are always funny and I always read them. I don’t know if it was on my list of things to do, but it’s always nice to be honored. I didn’t expect any of this—especially the cover. What’s crazy is that this magazine is distributed around so many countries. It’s not like it’s just in American Apparels in the US—it’s probably going to be in like 20 different issues with different languages all over the world. As far as photography goes, I like it when everyone can see my work. I’m not all that interested in having my work on gallery walls where only a very select number of people can see my photography. That’s not why I do it.Too bad our magazine is impossible to find.
[laughs] Yeah.
Ellis, our managing editor, showed me four photos of you and asked me which one I thought we should use for your Employee of the Month photo. Of course, I voted for the one where you’re jumping between two goddamn mountains. We didn’t end up using that one because apparently Ellis doesn’t like death-defying action shots, but I wanted to ask you what was going on in that photo.
That one’s an old favorite. That was in New Zealand. I studied abroad there when I was in college. We’d go up to this place to go rock climbing. My friend and I were just climbing around, like stuff you do when you’re a little kid, and I realized I could probably jump from one part to another because it wasn’t that wide. How far was the drop?
The drop looks bigger from the way it’s shot, but it was probably about 30 or 40 feet. But the actual gap that you’re clearing was probably only seven feet and I was like, “I can do this.” I did it once and was like “Woah, that was awesome, Josh you have to go shoot a picture,” and my friend josh stood up there and he didn’t know how to use the camera so he missed the shot. He shot too early and so I had a blank frame of just that vista without me. Then the third time I had to jump it, and I was about over it at that point, he nailed it. Not sure how you want to do it, but you can either check back here every day for a new fashion-y article, or you can leave your apartment right now and scoop up a real life copy from one of these fine establishments. The third option, of course, is to pay for a subscription and wait patiently for a copy to be plopped on your front porch. Up to you.
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Bryan: That is Annette’s dog (VICE fashion editor). His name is Finn, and Asher Levine made that outfit specifically for him. He's an Italian greyhound. He looks ashamed.
I think he was ashamed. We did the shoot as quickly as we could, but he was tired and cold. He was better than some of the other dogs. His outfit fit him nicely and he wore it well. The other dogs couldn't wait to get out of theirs. Do you think PETA will have anything to say about this shoot?
I don't know. That did kind of go through my mind, but people dress their dogs up in crazy stuff all the time. Just because this one is a little more visually deviant doesn't make it different than dressing a dog up in a Christmas sweater. I mean, I’m a vegan and don’t wear leather.
My little sisters used to paint my dog's nails. He was a boy dog. I've never had a pet that I've adored like some people have. I feel like it could be a really special thing to dress your dog up if you had those feelings for your animal. So, no, I don't have any bold criticisms for people who dress up their dogs. Were the dogs pretty well behaved for the most part?
No! They were terrible. They were all psychopaths. The bartender dog at Humps, the strip club, kept jumping over the bar and attacking the other dogs, and the other dogs were so afraid they wouldn't get close to him. He looks mean. He's eyeing the Pomeranian by the stripper pole.
He was very aggressive. The dogs never looked where they were supposed to. The best shots were when they would put their heads down and start eating trash, or dig their heads into the trashcan. Then it felt a little more like, all right, these are the hobo dogs. Did they poop on set?
That happened a couple times. We were there for a long time. There was a lot of peeing going on, but I didn't have to clean up any of it. I think I rolled in it, though, when I was lying on the floor trying to get the best angles. Gross. Have you ever been to Pumps, the human equivalent of Humps?
I have not been to Pumps. I don’t spend enough time at the strip club.
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[laughs] How did you dig that up? Yeah, the reason I got to shoot this cover goes way back, actually. I started as an intern at VICE like five years ago, when VBS was first starting out. Jake Burghart was one of the senior editors, and I showed him a skateboard video that I made with Danilo Parra, who is also a VICE shooter, on a really nice February day in San Francisco. We went skating all day and made a video just like we would have when we were 15 years old. We came home and started editing it, and after I made my edit I asked Danilo if he thought we should tweak it. I came back about 15 minutes later and he had keyframed these Photoshop turds coming out of all the pedestrians’ butts and flying all over the place. He called it Sunshine in Brown Town. So I showed Jake that video when I was trying to get an internship at VICE to show him that I could film and edit. He loved it, and I’ve had a relationship with the magazine ever since.So that’s how you got your foot in the door, huh?
Yep, turds.
Employees of the Month are always funny and I always read them. I don’t know if it was on my list of things to do, but it’s always nice to be honored. I didn’t expect any of this—especially the cover. What’s crazy is that this magazine is distributed around so many countries. It’s not like it’s just in American Apparels in the US—it’s probably going to be in like 20 different issues with different languages all over the world. As far as photography goes, I like it when everyone can see my work. I’m not all that interested in having my work on gallery walls where only a very select number of people can see my photography. That’s not why I do it.Too bad our magazine is impossible to find.
[laughs] Yeah.
That one’s an old favorite. That was in New Zealand. I studied abroad there when I was in college. We’d go up to this place to go rock climbing. My friend and I were just climbing around, like stuff you do when you’re a little kid, and I realized I could probably jump from one part to another because it wasn’t that wide. How far was the drop?
The drop looks bigger from the way it’s shot, but it was probably about 30 or 40 feet. But the actual gap that you’re clearing was probably only seven feet and I was like, “I can do this.” I did it once and was like “Woah, that was awesome, Josh you have to go shoot a picture,” and my friend josh stood up there and he didn’t know how to use the camera so he missed the shot. He shot too early and so I had a blank frame of just that vista without me. Then the third time I had to jump it, and I was about over it at that point, he nailed it. Not sure how you want to do it, but you can either check back here every day for a new fashion-y article, or you can leave your apartment right now and scoop up a real life copy from one of these fine establishments. The third option, of course, is to pay for a subscription and wait patiently for a copy to be plopped on your front porch. Up to you.