Robinsons Place Manila’s Midtown Wing, the latest addition to the mall and the zone where you can find shops of popular brand name apparel, invited 10 hand-picked individuals with impeccable taste in clothes (ha!) for a chance of a lifetime: scour the area for great fashion finds with the license to shoot anything we find interesting point blank (with a camera, of course, silly LOL). To help us with the challenge, we were told to bring with us one avid reader of our blogs. Since we’re doing clothes, I thought, “hmmm, I’ll need a male model.” Long story short, Josh Collins came to the rescue! He has the height, build, look, and the moves that’ll give those clothes justice.

We weren’t required to do a fashion shoot with props, lights setup, make-up, hair, and stylists with us but the chance to shoot the latest clothes from all those brand name merchandise was too perfect for this “idea” I once floated on plurk (the details are still to be finalized but it’s a big photographer-model-designer collaboration that’s sure to be a hit!). Five stores in three hours. Enough time for a field day at the mall! In this post, I’ll be featuring Salsa and Girbaud. In Part II, I’ll show you stuff from 7 for all Mankind, Top Man, and Florsheim. We were limited to stores from the Midtown Wing which didn’t feel limiting at all. That place was long, spanning three floors. They even have free WiFi!

Girbaud. Girbaud’s very friendly and accommodating store personnel were telling us things like, “You’re not going to shoot items for women? OK, here are our latest items for men.” And I was like, “do you still have that bag that turns into a jacket? Really? GREAT! Is that still from the latest collection? COOL! I’ll need two: one that’s opened up as a jacket and one that’s still in bag form. I don’t want that color jeans because those will get muted by the jacket at this kind of light. Give me faded and washed ones please. Also, we’ll be needing shoes. And a wallet.” Spoken like a veteran, I know LOL. Aaaaaaaaaaaand this is how the articles looked on Josh.

The jacket is called Music Head. It’s features the WearABag design that I first saw on the net sometime in May 2010 that I’ve wondered how it looked up close since. The design looks well put together and the material felt comfortable worn. So those are two Music Head articles Josh is wearing, the jacket and the bag. They retail for P6,500 a pop. The jeans are called Snaker, priced at P12,650. The shoes, not in the photos, are Externes, P1,990, and the Thor wallet goes for P1,300. In the next photo, Josh does a hand stand (look at it sideways and you’ll see).

Next up, Salsa. Honestly, I have never heard of Salsa before Sunday so I had to look them up on the Internet the night before for an idea. The store personnel were just a friendly as those in Girbaud, always assisting and answering our inquiries with a smile. Salsa we’ve been told has three different lines of clothes: there’s the “1st Level” or the premium collection, “Collection” or the line that changes every season, and the “Basic” which is more like a classic collection that never goes away nor changes. They have belts, shoes, jeans, and shirts. It’s a unisex brand but we only focused on things that we guys can wear. Cuts and washes of the clothes are current and the details really make it look premium, justifying the price. When we were there, they even had some items at 50% off.

Second photo: “1st Level” T-Shirt (from P3,808.50, now on sale at P2,665.95). Third Photo: “1st Level” Jeans (from P9,902.00, now on sale at P7,921.60). Fourth photo: “Collection” Polo (from P3,428, now P1,714.00). Fifth photo: “Collection” Shoes (from P6,903.50, now on sale at P3,046.75). Of all the things here, I liked those shoes best.

OK ba? That’s it for Part I. Watch out for Part II of this post.