"In the late sixties, Parisian high society escapes to the mountains for an acid moonlight party getaway." As setups go, Alexis Martial's for Iceberg this season ranked high on the weirdness scale. And true to his press release, there were ideas both space age and spacey on the runway today. The transparent plastic rectangles that decorated a few of the designer's sweatshirts come to mind—those definitely weren't washing machine safe. Slightly less odd, but still somewhat superfluous, were the transparent chiffon overlays he added to simple knits.
As Martial gains experience and confidence, he'll learn to pare down such runway tricks. Anyway, most of his knits were plenty interesting on their own. We liked the roll-neck ribbed pullover and wrap dress in navy. Chunky sweaters treated with a crinkly silver foil, like an astronaut's space suit, were even better. Iceberg's foundation is knitwear, so the fact that Martial is so handy in this area counts for a lot. But his real talent just might be tailoring. The mod jackets and pants looked timely and sharp, despite the fact that they were cut from spongy neoprene-bonded fabrics. As Martial gets situated at Iceberg, what we're really looking forward to seeing are more of his suits.
