“I spent two months between Tokyo and Seoul last year, trying to take a break from Mexico City,” says Cheryl Santos of the genesis behind her new label, Sauna (she was also inspired by “drinking Japanese beer and soju by night”, which sounds fun). Sauna takes a K-pop aesthetic, and marries it to Mexico City’s bootleg culture, creating a new take on streetwear. Santos, who’s the editor of i-D Mexico, and our go-to for all matters Korean, took the time to tell us about the label’s first collaboration, what it means to be “mild not wild”, and how the creatives of Mexico City make it work.
What inspired you to create Sauna?
I often designed T-shirts for myself, of specific references that helped me express what I liked at the moment and that didn’t exist — like the logo of a new anime, or the photo of the Korean actor Park Bo Gum wearing Prada in a press conference in Seoul.
