In February last year a style blogger photographed “Brother Sharp” – a vagrant walking the streets fishing through bins and looking for fag butts – his story is amazing but no more amazing than the average down-and-out… Taken from Baidu Beat:
China’s entrance into 2011 was accompanied by the birth of a men’s fashion brand unlike any other. On the afternoon of New Years Eve at a packed Shanghai press conference, fashion entrepreneur Zhuang Weiguo formally established China’s first “peasant chic” fashion brand – a luxury men’s clothing company based entirely on the style and persona of the infamous Ningbo beggar and Internet sensation Brother Sharp. The brand, which has been prematurely described as the “Chinese equivalent to Gucci or MaxMara,” has received an astonishing degree of interest from Chinese netizens, rendering Brother Sharp Baidu’s number three ranked search item in the early days of 2011.
Brother Sharp, whose legal name is Cheng Guorong, unknowingly made his entrance onto the Chinese Internet scene when a female blogger dedicated an entire page to Cheng’s derelict but somehow enticing and sexy peasant look. The original Tianya blog entry, which was posted on February 21, 2010, featured a number of pictures as well as an intriguing ode to Cheng: “It’s his deep and melancholy eyes, his unkempt scruff of a mustache, the staggering harmony of his mishmash wardrobe, and his shaggy and disorderly hair – these are the charms of Brother Sharp.”
Following the initial blog post early last year, Cheng became an immediate Internet megahit, garnering his own fan sites and a creative array of netizen oeuvres dedicated to his growing online persona. Among the most popular were a song entitled “Brother Sharp song” and a series of utterly farcical Photoshopped images of Cheng’s face superimposed on advertisements for the world’s most acclaimed designer brands – from Dior to Calvin Klein.
Most surprising, however, was the attention that Cheng received from Ningbo city government officials after repeated netizen requests that Brother Sharp be provided with some form of government assistance. On March 2, 2010, the Ningbo Party Deputy General Secretary reported in a press conference that the government was “doing everything it could to improve the living situation of Mr. Cheng.”
Regardless of Cheng’s instant popular success, the launching of the Brother Sharp men’s clothing took many in the Chinese fashion world by surprise. Mr. Zhuang, the above-mentioned general manager of Brother Sharp brand, told media representatives on Friday that he had raised over 10 million RMB in capital (roughly 1.5 million USD) in order to establish the company, and that renowned Italian designer Francesco Fiordeli had been hired to take part in the designing process.
China Hush have this insight on Brother Sharp.
Daily Telegraph delivered this piece today