The guard has changed at Iceberg. Young Vienna-born, Milan-based Arthur Arbesser, freshly installed as the label’s womenswear designer, was front row (or, at least, front of the jostling crowd) at the first men’s collection by new menswear designer, Londoner James Long. Long may not speak Italian, but he’s got the visual language down pat. His debut amounted to the peppiest, poppiest Iceberg men’s presentation in years and was a fitting follow-up to Arbesser’s well-received September showing in terms of brand revival.
Long spouted off plenty about roots and codes, the new descriptive vocabulary of choice of any designer working for any label, including his or her own. But really what Long did was look back at Iceberg’s start in 1974, grab the rainbow-color triangle logo its first designer, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, came up with, and run with it.
There was an easy athleticism to this collection. “Iceberg is luxury sportswear,” stated Long, wearing a silky rayon bomber emblazoned with that rainbow emblem. Bombers formed the core of the stuff sported by the models, atop techy Iceberg-branded sneakerlike scuba socks and with army surplus knit combat pants or knit track pants in between. Each piece incorporated some kind of knit, in rainbow-striped panels or ribbing. Much of it was reversible. The models wound up resembling a mid-’70s Olympic team from some obscure, outlying nation, in their bobsled-ready multicolored knits and nylon track pants.
One section was patterned with Mickey Mouse scrawls, based on a hand-drawing by De Castelbajac that had been redrawn by Long. “I felt it was important it had my hand in there,” Long said. In turn, the design was refracted through the artwork of the label’s founders, Silvio and Giuliana Gerani. They’re avid Pop Art collectors, so we got a knit Mickey via Bridget Riley stripes, and another à la Andy Warhol, obviously.
After a messy, overworked show under his own label in London that, unfortunately, pulled a bigger crowd than usual thanks to the Iceberg gig, Long was on best behavior. Maybe the aim was to prove that he, still a relatively unknown niche London name new to the Italian fashion establishment, was up to the job. If so, it worked.
