Brighton Fashion Week - Introducing Tanja Stöcklin

 
As part of our Brighton Fashion Week coverage, Bobbysix.com chats to one of this year's rising stars:


“It was never my plan to do this.” 

On a blazing hot June afternoon, Brighton’s Corn Exchange is buzzing and bustling as the biggest and best Brighton Fashion Week to date approaches its finish line. In the courtyard outside stands Tanja Stöcklin. She has been at the venue since 6am, is sore of throat and clearly a little weary, yet there is still a sparkle in her eyes as she lets go an infectious smile. There have been many people for whom the week has been a triumph - designers, organisers, stylists, models - but if you are looking for the star of this year's BFW, then, in Bobbysix’s opinion, you need look no further than the 21-year-old from Switzerland.

When I suggest this to her, she accepts my praise with humility, and tells me that her modelling came about entirely by accident. “I was actually supposed to be an assistant stylist,” she recalls. “I just wrote an email to the head stylist and asked if I could help. She said I could. I went to a photoshoot to assist and a model was missing. They asked me if I wanted to be the model, so I did it, and then they asked me if I wanted to walk as well.”

And so began the would-be assistant stylist’s prominent role in the 2011 Brighton Fashion Week. “One of the my highlights was the Couture Show, especially the dress I was wearing for Alexei Izmaylov. It was a beautiful, really big dress and it felt really good to walk in. It was very playful. Also, I walked on a theatrical show for Former Glory. I was a zombie, which was fun.” However, her involvement in proceedings weren’t to start and end with modelling. “I also became the assistant producer for the War Child charity gig at the Concorde 2, so in the end, I did a bit of everything.”

Just as it has been for everyone involved with BFW, it’s been a long, busy week for Tanja. With all models giving up their time voluntarily and trying to juggle between fashion events and their day-to-day lives, late nights have invariably blurred into early mornings. But with such long working hours and hard work come feelings of satisfaction and achievement as reputations are carved and lifelong friendships are founded. Judging by the number of people that give Tanja a hug and a hello during the time I am in her company, it is clear that her dedication and generous spirit have resulted in her being held in high regard by peers and colleagues. And deservedly so. Indeed, the next evening, at the official wrap party, Director Lizzy Bishop would make a point of including Tanja in her list of thanks. 

Such love is reciprocated. “I think it’s brilliant,” she says when talk turns to Brighton Fashion Week’s role in the grand scheme of things. “It’s a good place to start, even as a model because I met quite a few people who did Brighton Fashion Week last year and they got scouted and did London Fashion Week afterwards. They say Brighton is a little London and I agree with that but the difference with this Fashion Show is you can see that Brighton is very alternative; for instance, the Jess Eaton collection. Also, the models don’t have to be, like, super skinny and a size six. There are more interesting, curvy women, which I think is good.” She pauses briefly, before adding. “They say beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, which I think is quite nice.”

During our conversation in the Brighton sunshine, Stöcklin remains constantly engaging. Her words are considered, intelligent and delivered with a soft Swiss accent while accompanied by gesticulation and a smile that could melt the coldest of hearts. We talk of her move to England a couple of years ago (“I just came over on a gap year. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.”) and of how, when she was younger, she seemed more destined to be a footballer than a model. Having played to a high standard in her home country, she still has the skills to pay the bills. “I was at a party recently and it was a bit boring, so I found a football and was just on my own, doing keep-ups.” While this anecdote makes me lament the fact that I have never chanced upon a pretty lady with awesome dress-sense and a sick haircut entertaining herself by effortlessly juggling a ball between her left and right foot at a party, it also illustrates that Tanja Stöcklin is not your archetypal twenty-something. And anyone who would rather kick a ball around on their own than throw booze indiscriminately down their throat is okay by us.

After we make tentative plans for a kick-about in the near future, it is time for Tanja to head backstage to prepare for the penultimate catwalk show. In contrast to the looming horizon for the 2011 Brighton Fashion Week, there is no doubt that things are just getting started for Stöcklin. “I got scouted,” she tells me as we talk of what was to come next for her. While clearly flattered by the offer to sign with a modelling agency, it is not a decision that she was ever going to take lightly. “I’m a merchandiser for Zara and I am doing an Art and Design Foundation course, so I’m just really busy in general,” she says, while later explaining to us that, in the future, she has aspirations to run her own vintage clothing store.

“I think studying is probably more important than modelling,” she suggests. But she delivers this clearly genuine sentiment with a cheeky look in her eye that that suggests an assault on the modelling world actually rather appeals to this hard-studying, hard-working former tomboy. “I mean, I never thought that modelling would be something for me but after this week I realised that it is actually something I really enjoy. I still think my education should have priority, but I'm sure there will be some time for modelling next to school.”

There is a brightness of character about Tanja Stöcklin that suggests, whichever direction she chooses to head, she will make a huge success of it. Considering the positive impact she had on Brighton Fashion Week, it seems that modelling might indeed be a road worth venturing down. “I might accept the contract,” she says, once again giving off that winning smile. "Why not? It could be fun.”

Interview by Rob Townsend.  

Enjoyed what you read? Why not Vote for Tanja as the Face of Brighton 2012 at the Brighton Fashion Week website. 

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Let’s beat the beautiful game into submission with a copy of Tony Pulis’ Big Book of Tactics.

Fans of Rob Townsend's weekly column in English newspaper The Argus will notice there is nothing from him this Thursday. Normal service will be resumed next week but, for now, here is a web-only special, exclusive to BobbySix.com:

Steve Claridge's comments on his video blog on the BBC football website really seem to get on people's nerves, don't they? Recently he waxed lyrical about how Brighton and Hove Albion's style of Total Football wouldn't work if the club competes in the Championship next season because teams would be fitter and better equipped to close down their passing game. I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life. Sure, the quality of opposition is going to be better - it is a higher division after all - but what does he propose they do? Start lumping it up to centre forward Glenn Murray? Hit the ball into the corners and try to score from set pieces and throw-ins? Good idea Steve. Let’s beat the beautiful game into submission with a copy of Tony Pulis’ Big Book of Tactics.

Aren't Swansea and QPR flying high in The Championship by playing fluid, passing football? Didn’t Brighton beat Watford and Portsmouth recently? I don’t think anyone expects a team like Brighton to march straight to the Premier League, but surely, with a few signings, they could hold their own and remain playing aesthetically pleasing stuff.

To be honest, football followers shouldn't be concerned about the rubbish Steve Claridge spouts. If you read the comments sections below his - quite awful - videos, he is berated pretty much universally by fans from all divisions. I have never been a fan of his viewpoint. On the BBC he pontificates with such arrogance that you would think he was the ultimate authority on football. In reality he is just another former player trying to make a buck.

In fairness though, while the words that tumble out of Claridge's mouth really grate on me, he is just a small fish in a massive pond of pointless punditry that blights my enjoyment of football. The problem is that there is just so much media coverage now that we are subjected to countless former players giving their ill-informed views just to fill air time and column inches. I fail to understand why Sky's live coverage starts an hour before kick-off. Do we really care what Scott Minto (for example) has to say? Not really. The pundits who are on constant rotation don't have an all-seeing knowledge of every team they cover, so it is little wonder they sometimes get things completely wrong.

I have no problem listening to pundits talk about things they are expert in. Alan Hanson's analysis of defending is genuinely interesting and I love listening to Guardian journalists discussing issues on the newspaper's excellent football podcast. I just can't be doing with the half-baked opinions of the likes of Claridge, who seem to talk purely for the sake of talking. If you don’t know what you’re going on about, how about just keeping your mouth shut?

Weighed down by a deluded sense of grandeur and arrogance

So, four years of waiting resulted in what for England’s football followers? Less than nothing. While a blinkered few blame the failure on a refereeing decision and the tabloids call for the head of the manager and the players that, not a day before, they confidently predicted would triumph over Germany, the simple fact of the matter is that English football needs to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch.

Playing in an anachronistic, uninventive formation that has dogged English football for eons, the players huffed and puffed around the pitch, lacking vigour, lacking verve. The centre-halves - two old tortoises - creaked their bones as German hares ran circles around them. The midfield treated the ball as the hottest potato. The wingers were poor of touch and inaccurate of cross. The strikers, no confidence, no movement, no idea.

England’s performance in the World Cup served as a microcosm of the whole of English football and, to some extent, English culture. Desperately trying to cling to the glory days of yesteryear, unable to keep up as other nations race past them, ENG-ER-LAND is weighed down by a deluded sense of grandeur and arrogance. Worse still, its jingoistic gutter press fuels the need to cling onto rivalries that are, nowadays, embarrassingly one-sided. One World Cup and Two World Wars and all that other sick-making xenophobia only serves to make England look like a silly, insular, small-minded island rather than a major world force.

Old Albion is a sinking ship, water seeping through rotten wood while the band plays on pigheadedly and its passengers drink themselves into oblivion to a chorus of “Vindaloo, Vindaloo la la”.

And yet, the arrogance remains. Weighed down by inflated egos, the players are spoilt children. Wayne Rooney reacts to a few post-game boos by, rather than bowing his head and accepting a reasonable react to a turgid display, looking down the barrel of the camera and berating the fans. The same fans that have spent a fortune to go to South Africa to watch him do absolutely nothing for four games. And this cancerous petulance has spread through all levels of the English game, right down to little Johnny in the park in his white boots and with his collar upturned, snarling at the opposition and strutting like his heroes. For the greater good, professional footballers need to be moulded back into the ordinary blokes they used to be. Wage caps, a greater community role, whatever. At the moment, people certainly cannot relate to the moronic millionaires that seem to be on the front pages as much as they are on the back. Simply, players, and English football as a whole, needs to learn some humility.

A clear-out of the mainstays of the England team is certainly necessary. But who to replace them with? If England wants to ever be a great footballing nation again, rather than to slip and slide towards becoming a Scotland, the fans and the FA need to forget about the next European Championships and World Cup and look after the youth players coming through. Literally, every possible footballing resource should be poured into putting a ball at the feet of 9 and 10 year-old kids. Too extreme? After a disastrous Euro 2000 campaign, that’s exactly what Germany did. And what happened to those kids that were nurtured so carefully? They just taught England a lesson in the 2010 World Cup.

"Thanks very much and let's have coffee,"

There isn’t much room in football for fairytales anymore. Inter park the bus in front of the Nou Camp goal in the semis and then out-defend Bayern to win the Champions League. Europe apathetically half-watches while secretly wishing that Messi was banging in a hat-trick at Real’s home ground, or that Arsenal had somehow chanced their way to glory. Fulham march to within a whisker of Europa League silverware but come a cropper to a side that got to the final by drawing the vast majority of their games in the tournament. Real and Barca play in a league so two-sided it makes the SPL look competitive. Meanwhile, The Premier League is supposed to be the most exciting competition in the world, but I can’t think of a time when it has been more staid. People got worked up about Tottenham knocking Liverpool out of fourth place. Why? It’s not like they didn’t spend decent sums of money to do so. Is it really such an achievement to finish higher than a club descending down a slippery slope and a Manchester City team who, if you gave them Mourinho’s bus, would probably end up accidentally parking it behind the goal instead of in front of it?

Tottenham’s sense of triumph at reaching the Champions League qualifiers is indicative what is wrong with the Premier League. How long have we had the notion of The Big Four? Why do we have it? Why should ‘breaking the top four’ be lauded in such a way? The Premier League has now reached such a level of predictability that teams like Spurs and Everton set their sights on fourth place as the very best they can achieve. Tottenham’s top four finish was in no way, as some are suggesting, a fairytale. This will inevitably be proved when they are bundled out of the Champions League at the first hurdle before next season has even got going.

Not much has been said about it, but I think Wolves deserve a lot of credit for staying up. However, even they, by driving the streets of Wolverhampton and rounding up a bunch of strangers to make up their eleven at Old Trafford, highlighted just how the Premier League playing field is less level than Wembley’s.

Wolves' starting line-up at Old Trafford.

Thank God then, in a season when teams field the reserves against a side from the same division, because they know their best eleven has no chance either, for Ian Holloway’s Blackpool. The only footballing fairytale of the 2009/2010 season (so close, Ross County, so close). Playing in a three-sided ground in front of League One sized crowds, they were tipped by many for relegation at the start of the campaign. Marvellous then, that a late burst took them into the play offs. Even more marvellous that they went and got promoted. And the best thing about it? That they did so playing really exciting, attacking football. Their devil-may-care approach was best summed up by the final against Cardiff. You scored two? Okay, we’ll have to score three. Blackpool’s attacking style is a breath of fresh air and, as full backs rampage forward, leaving open spaces behind them with gay abandon, one can’t help get the feeling that this is the way football should be played. If Mourinho gave them his bus, chances are they’d all pile in it and drive it straight at the opposition goal.

So, well done Blackpool for giving football romantics a little slither of joy at the end of a dull season. And, when the critics are handing out plaudits, they should look no further than the man with more classic quotes than Karl Pilkington (see clip below) - manager Ian Holloway. By achieving the unthinkable with mere pennies at his disposal, he is surely the manager of the year. Mourinho might be the name on everyone’s lips as he takes over the hot-seat in Madrid, but I’d like to see him come to Blackpool and do what Holloway’s done on the same budget.

Slinging things at Craig Bellamy's head

The state of football at the moment is pretty depressing, and I feel increasingly distanced from the game with every news headline I read.

I've been doing my best to avoid the whole John Terry circus, but I find it amazing, considering how many negative stories he has been at the centre of over the years, that it has taken people until 2010 to question his character. I understand the argument that a player's personal life and their career should be allowed to remain separate, but I wholeheartedly agree with the decision to strip the England captaincy from him. While he didn't break any laws with his infidelity, captaining a nation should be held in reverence by somebody prepared to be a role model and ambassador. I'm not sure whether Rio Ferdinand quite suits that description but, if England win the World Cup this year and Terry still had the armband, it would have left a seriously bad taste in my mouth. I only mentioned a couple of months ago how I wasn't sure I even wanted England to win it, as the thought of Ashley Cole becoming an MBE makes me want to vomit, and this latest Terry incident has only further fuelled my negativity.

It's not just players that have been failing to shroud themselves in glory either. Certain supporters have been doing their bit to drag the game down too of late by throwing objects from the stands. There can't be many people who haven't wanted to sling something at Craig Bellamy's head at some stage or other, but, even in an emotionally charged situation, very few of us would ever actually do it.

Elsewhere, governing bodies and clubs are adding to the miserable climate. In international football, the decision to ban Togo from the next two African Cups of Nations was mind-blowingly heartless and ill-judged, while, back home, Pompey are in all kinds of trouble and even the mighty Manchester United are in a mess and are the subject of protests from their usually subservient fans. If the biggest club in the world can't get its finances right, what hope is there for anyone else?

It's almost enough to make a person want to give up on football altogether, but then something happens that reminds you why you fell in love with the game in the first place. For me, it was seeing the greatest assist of all time by Real Madrid's Guti recently. It was a magnificent piece of artistry and, with the simple act of backheeling a football, this player made me realise why I bother with the sport. Because, at its purest, it is still the beautiful game, even if it is rife with idiots.

Henry’s juggling sparks plenty of debate...

Thierry Henry’s bit of juggling last week certainly sparked plenty of debate. The Irish, poor souls, are in uproar, the French are as embarrassed as they are relieved, and everyone else seems to be chipping in with their opinion. I find it interesting that morality, in this instance, seems largely to depend on which team your sympathy lies with.

Had Robbie Keane handled the ball to give Ireland the win, would there have been such a fuss, or would we merely have labelled him ‘cheeky’? Rather than focusing on this one indiscretion, we’d more likely have hailed Ireland for being wily enough to squeeze past France.

As a Brighton supporter, I can recall a couple of instances when my team were guilty of some rule-breaking. I have a vague memory of full-back Johnny Crumplin slapping the ball in with his palm at Cambridge one time. Everyone, including Crumplin, looked at the ref and waited for a free-kick and a yellow card, but, amazingly, a goal was awarded. At Withdean, striker Gary Hart punched one in with his fist in the last minute against Southend. Did you find Brighton fans suggesting the game should be replayed? No, they laughed all the way home, delighted with the three points.

Calls from the Irish Football Association for the France game to be replayed were frankly ridiculous and possibly the greatest ever example of clutching at straws. If a game were to be replayed every time a ref missed a key decision, teams would end up playing every day of the week. Every time Manchester United lost, Sir Alex would be straight on the phone to the FA demanding the match be voided because the linesman got a throw-in decision wrong in the first half.

In his distinctive, brilliantly angry way, Roy Keane put it best during a press conference. “France are going to the world cup. Get over it,” he shrugged. Okay, maybe he was a bit harsh, but he made a good point about how, earlier in the campaign, Ireland won a game which saw them score from a dodgy penalty, and there were no offers to replay that game.

People are labelling Henry a cheat, but he is no more a cheat than any winger who dives or any centre-half who grabs a handful of a striker’s shirt. It was an instinctive reaction to use his hand, and people who say he ought to have owned up should put themselves in his boots, in a game of such importance (remembering that this world cup might be his last) and ask themselves whether, honestly, they would have told the ref to disallow the goal. I’m not sure I would.

Regardless of this incident, I’ll always think of Henry as one of the greatest players I’ve ever had the privilege of watching. He transforms football into an art form, and outraged moralists should forgive him this one blemish and instead focus on the sheer beauty he has brought to the game. After all, even though Diego Maradona ruined my summer in 1986, I still regard him as the greatest footballer that has ever lived.

We all know that instant TV replays are a good idea but until they come in, we just have to accept that sometimes, no matter how heartbreaking it can be, you’re going to be stitched up by bad officiating or plain bad luck.

Another case of footballers making the news for the wrong reason

So, recently, English Premier League footballer Marlon King went and got himself banged up for 18-months for a sex assault. It's not the first time he has been in trouble with the law either.

This is yet another, albeit more extreme than usual, example of the kind of story that crops up every now and again in the newspapers, as footballers seem to be as much on the front pages for being involved either as the perpetrator or the victim of a fracas in the early hours as they are on the back pages for scoring goals.

Even though he intends to appeal, King is clearly a troubled person, but, when considering some of the slightly more trivial cases, I suppose it must be hard to go out on the town if you’re a footballer. I’ve had the occasional night out with groups of players and, sure, it’s nice to walk straight to the front of the queue and to be looked after by proprietors, but there are downsides too. There are inevitably supporters who want to sing your name or bend your ear about tactics when all you want to do is hang out with your mates, and then there are the opposition fans who, fuelled by too much booze, want to tell you exactly what they think of you. And if you’re Stephen Gerrard, a bit of a row about the music in a club ends up with you appearing in court.

I suppose the simple solution is that if footballers don’t want unwelcome attention, they shouldn’t go to places where they are most likely to get it. Harry Redknapp even went so far as to ban his Tottenham players from nightclubs after another King, this time Ledley, ended up in the local police station after a few too many. “I don't want players going out to nightclubs, getting drunk and misbehaving,” Redknapp said. “If you look at the problems, they nearly all come when people get drunk. I don't understand it; they're so well paid, so well looked after.” I think Redknapp echoed the opinions of millions of hard-working football fans with that vox-pop. Oh, and, incidentally, the alleged quote from Ledley King when he found himself dishevelled in a police station in the early hours of the morning was: "Boss man, boss man, I don't deserve to be here - I'm rich." Classic.

Footballers are young and vivacious, so telling them not to go clubbing is futile, but it does seem to be a very British thing to drink your bodyweight after a game. I remember hearing a story about an Arsenal party where the English players were throwing booze down their necks while the foreign stars like Henry sat in the corner nursing their orange juices and wondering why their team mates were abusing their bodies so badly. It’s not often you see hammered overseas players being snapped by the paps as they stagger out of nightclubs having just been involved in a dust up. Can you imagine Tierry Henry downing pints or doing shots of tequila in a dentist chair?

Of course, it’s none of our business how and where players unwind but, if having to miss out on going to a few of the rowdier clubs in town is the price they pay for all the other rewards being a footballer brings, then it doesn’t seem like a bad deal to me.

And, as far as Marlon King goes, the depressing thing is that another club will snap him up with no questions asked when he gets out. Okay, if he does his time then he is perfectly entitled to get back to playing football, but it just seems unfair that the likes of him and Joey Barton, yes, this Joey Barton, the one who is always in trouble, can live the wonderful lives of footballers and bank the pay-cheques.

A mercenary industry where cold hard cash supersedes loyalty

This week, my football column in The Argus focuses on Manchester City and on what money is doing to the game:
Even to people who have no real love for the English Premier League, a game to keep an eye on this weekend is Arsenal’s visit to Manchester City, as the juxtaposition between the two clubs is really interesting. One has a manager who, rather than spending the big bucks, likes to bring unknown players through the ranks, while the other is football’s equivalent of a Lotto winner going on a spending spree. It’ll be intriguing to see what happens and I’m probably not alone when I say that I’d really like Arsenal’s lovingly nurtured team to take City to the cleaners.

To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about Manchester City. On the one hand, I want them to fail miserably. The way they are cherry-picking players by throwing silly money around is indicative of just what is wrong with the game nowadays. Money is a disease that is eating football from the inside out. It is creating a mercenary industry where cold hard cash supersedes loyalty and success must be attained immediately or the manager is given the sack (with a tasty golden handshake) at the first opportunity. All the while fans are finding themselves progressively more alienated. How much longer can we be expected to love a game played by petulant millionaires while we struggle to afford the ever increasing ticket prices? To see City pay £24m for Jolene Lescott, who is probably worth less than half that, shows just how distorted things are becoming.

On the other hand though, I certainly don’t begrudge Manchester City fans the newfound excitement that all these signings has brought them. It can’t be easy living in the shadow of Manchester United, and it would be nice if the top four’s monopoly was compromised. I suppose though, that the reason I’m not sure how I feel about Manchester City is because I realise that my problems with their wealth are born largely out of jealousy. In truth, it’s hard to be too resentful when I know, in my heart of hearts, that if an insanely rich Sheikh threw a gazillion pounds at my team, my outlook would be very much different. We’d all love it if success was achieved organically; if our club climbed the leagues through hard work and a sensible business model while retaining a sense of community, but if a place among football’s elite could be fast-tracked by an Arab with more dosh than sense, would you hear me moralising about how money is ruining the game? Of course not, I’d be too busy deciding which of our new superstar signings’ names I was going to have printed on the back of my replica shirt.

The transfer window - a false, cornered market?

Every Saturday I write a column about football in English newspaper, The Argus. Here is an excerpt from my musings this week:Hull City manager Phil Brown recently brought up some interesting points about the transfer window, saying agents and players have created a false, cornered market that is unfairly weighed in favour of the seller. This prompted Manchester City boss Mark Hughes to bemoan the inflated prices and heightened expectations that come about because of the limited time clubs have to conduct their transfers.

It’s hardly surprising Hughes has got the hump, as surely any club that he approaches will stick a few million quid on any player’s asking price in the knowledge that Manchester City are swimming in cash since their takeover. A case in point was the Shay Given transfer. Newcastle boss Joe Kinnear described City’s original bid of £5m as “insulting.” This translates as, “Do me a favour. If you could afford to offer a hundred million for Kaka, you can at least throw us another £3m.”

I think the transfer window favours the big clubs who can afford to start the season with a massive squad. While everyone else suffers because of injuries and suspensions, the likes of Manchester United have players such as Tevez chomping at the bit to get a game. Mark Hughes stated in a recent interview that he couldn’t remember why the transfer window was brought in, and neither can I. Presumably it was for the benefit of the game, but how can such a melee where silly money is spent in a state of panic be anything but detrimental to football? Sure, it’s a fun spectacle for fans, but in these worrying economic times, shouldn’t more measured financial decisions be encouraged, rather than clubs desperately throwing money around and hoping some of it will stick?