Ah, Vienna: home of great coffee and awesome cakes—plus the birthplace of psychoanalysis. Arthur Arbesser is Viennese: This collection was replete with influences which, upon reflection, revealed quite a bit about its author. The return after many years of Helmut Lang favorite Cordula Reyer to the runway was the first breakthrough—for it revealed Arbesser’s lifelong fascination with fashion.
“He was a strange fan!” said Reyer of their very first meeting, in the ’90s. “I was living in L.A. then, but I was visiting Vienna. These two boys were looking at me on the street, then one of them came up to me and asked me for an autograph. It was Arthur. Nobody in Austria ever recognized me! And he was 12!” Over a decade later, Arbesser added, the two met again at the Milan furniture fair—where she recognized him—and they have been friends ever since.
Exhibit two was the main decorative influence of the show, the paintings of Heinz Stangl. This new-to-me painter, a now-deceased friend of Arbesser’s parents, created disturbing canvasses in cheery colors showing knotted kaleidoscopes of figures locked in what is either ecstasy or agony. Given his Viennese provenance, it’s probably a bit of both.
Arbesser translated this starting point—and the doomed poise of the Romanov daughters—into a collection that was, the Arbesser expert alongside me noted, a notably user-friendly outing from the designer. Swarovski pearls were used with restraint as contours on structured but ergonomic dark looks, including Reyer’s opening coat. Graphic polos, an Arbesser regular, were repeated but in less challenging graphics than previously. Printed viscose Stangl-inspired separates—plus complementary rain hats—needed no great analysis to be found desirable. Stangl-knit jacquard tabards, pocket-printed PVC outerwear, a mac with two black straps under each arm to create shape, and some fine chisel toe two-tone boots were amongst the other highlights of this very personal Viennese whirl.
