Iceberg. Spring 2020 RTW - Milan Fashion Week

(Images from the designer and the public domain. Credited to the 

photographer/company where applicable: Gorunway.com )

Iceberg, the 1975 Milano, Italian brand started as sports style knitwear, producing jackets and coats.  Which several decades later, became the fashion item of 1990s hiphop artists and well heeled UK ravers as a luxury sportswear and street wear style.  Iceberg in its retrospection as a Italian design house is somewhat obscure as a brand, yet it has a grounded following, mostly thanks to the cult status of its name – via both sides of the Atlantic.  Despite all this the brand has struggled to define itself, amidst the larger Italian Prêt-à-Porter brands and styles or better known as Ready-to-Wear (designer fast fashion).  The Italian brand has gone through a slew of designs in the last 10 years, all trying to reinvigorate the brand name as a cultist fixture of style.  Landing with James Long, the UK designer who has been onboard the Iceberg since Fall 2017 and so far so good for Long, as he has lasted the distance.  Deciding to set the brand into its 90's roots as a template of styles. 

The 1980s maybe known, as far as reworking  current trends, for pinstriped power suits, shoulder pads, sex, cocaine and hedonism.  It was the 1990s that was awash of dance music, techno and house parties that brought colors into the mix with the first wave of LSD that later morphed to the drug 'ecstasy'. Lets be honest here, the dance parties have always been a drugged induced affair, it was just the evolution of aesthetics – hence the clothing was supposed to evoke a redux theme, as a 90's throw back to the hippies of the 1960s, over 30 years ago.  Does it work?  That is the million dollar question, more so; Does it work now in 2019?  Hard to say.  The 90's have bounced back as a fashion point, with the early twenty year olds fascinated with 90's retro (and you thought the 80's was supposed to be retro. Now you're feeling old). 

Is Long cutting it with redoing of the rave party styles?  The answer is both yes and no.  He has definitely muted the spectrum since his earlier seasons, the colors are more pastel, less in your face – which, if you take as one of the less admirable trends of the 90's was there overuse of color, that was all set onto garish and cheap arrays.  The reality is this is not some pop up fashion label, rather a high end Italian fashion brand that churns through creative directors.  So, even though there is a fresh wave of young adults into the said styles, they won't be (most of them) be able to afford to buy it.   Which sets the precedence that is probably wise to mature the looks as time marches on.  Shifting from the modernized raver looks to the darker urban got styles in a blink of an eye.  Might be a redirection of setting down a possibility of an interesting mix, between the two, without being predictable, for later seasons.  To this Long has be able to narrowly push his Spring 2020 collection for Iceberg over the line.