Surfing Through Emails

>> Hello?  Can you hear me?  Stranded is certainly how I feel when the internet is not an all access affair and becomes a faint and intermittent signal as it is in China.  I'm currently in Shanghai where Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, parts of Google, YouTube, Blogger and WordPress are blocked.  Proxy thing-a-ma-jigs don't seem to be working for me either.  All of that on top of a vaguely dodgy wifi/wired connection and it makes for a joyless experience of blogging.

I'm a Blogger, Get Me Out of Here?  Actually, I am only in Shanghai for another day to suck in as much of Elite's 28th Model Look final, an experience where I'm feeling like a Louis Theroux wannabe but at the same time, my intense love for the slightly more credible reality TV shows such as The Model Agency (based on Premier) and This Model Life are resurfacing, as I'm surrounded by bolshy model bookers and shy budding new faces.

Whilst I gather enough "OMG You've got such a FIERCE walk!" type material for the blog, I have no choice really but to trawl through emails and find any gems to blog about that are about as far-and-away from where I am, as possible.   Roberto Sanchez, better known as one half of Mexican cult fashion label TEAMO, which I've previously written about, has now branched off on his own.   It reads to me like some sad M83 type parting.  His partner Rafa Cuevas is the Anthony Gonzalez in current M83 and Sanchez is the Nicolas Fromageau in Team Ghost.  Turns out, Sanchez has kicked off his solo offering under his own name, with good foundations.

The vision that he brought to TEAMO has grown up a bit for his own label and has perhaps become a bit uglier and complex.  His inspiration board for his S/S 12 collection is a collation of Tumblr imagery that features the expected (fat sexy roses) and the unexpected (female body builders).  So far, so hipster.   The actual collection though is a weird combination of the prim and the perky, the slick and the sickly.  Blurry paint effects bloom into florals and the resulting print is balanced out with cut-out skirts and shirts as well as a khaki fixation that sees Sanchez try his hand at more body-forming silhouettes than what he did at TEAMO.  It's an intriguing start that will probably cause some fuss in his hometown Mexico City.  Let's hope that the fuss grows beyond that.  I already spy a wee online stockist to get things started.