Vice Kicks Off Fashion Week With A Doggy S&M Fashion Show

by Julia Rubin | 5:10 pm, February 9th, 2012

Last night, the night before the first official day of New York Fashion Week, we went back to college.

You see, Vice threw its Fashion Issue party at The Westway, a former-strip-club-turned-nightclub that reminds us of the downtown spots we frequented when we were attending school in Philadelphia. There are no tables, no bottles — just dancing. (Oh, and a stripper stage.) But last night the club reminded us even more of our undergrad days than usual, and it wasn’t just because a college friend was our plus one.

Every single person in the long, winding line got carded — we were even asked to recite our birthday and address. Much to our surprise, there was no open bar, though you could snag free cans of Budweiser during the first hour. We saw a guy in a backpack as we sipped our $12 gin and tonic and listened to a playlist of nondescript hip hop. We ran into half a dozen kids we went to school with. We smelled weed and reeked of cigarettes. It was like some sort of alternate universe where we were 19-year-old students who had bluffed our way into a club instead of adults at a Fashion Week party that we were on the list for.

We were briefly snapped out of our nostalgic haze during the night’s main event: an S&M doggy fashion show. A staffer with a variation on the Hitler Youth ‘do and a black PVC coat walked a handful of leather-clad dogs down the stripper stage (which does indeed make for an excellent doggy runway). “Drop It Like It’s Hot” played while everyone cooed over the four-legged models.

After the catwalk (dogwalk?) came to a close, a guy who was at least a foot taller than us spilled his can of beer all over our friend. Ah, yes, college. And with that, we assumed it was an appropriate time to make an exit. We even topped the night off with a slice of pizza. COLLEGE.

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