Iceberg. Fall 2020. Menswear- Milan Fashion Week

Images from the designer and the public domain. Credited to the photographer/company where applicable: Gorunway.com)

The clean lines and modernist tailoring, with its represented luxury brand labels and 'Thrift' look sensibilities was the merging trend of 2019 in regards to men's runway styles.  Left slightly behind was the avant garde morphed styles of the masculine charged, mountaineering and urban combat looks that gained traction in 2017 and 2018, as the overall style took a back seat to the more defined men's looks of late.  Well, it's great to see the UK designer James Long slam the durable and tough, with its draped avant-garde flows straight back onto the runway for Iceberg's Fall 2020 showing at Milan Fashion Week.  

There is no doubt Long, since taking the reigns as Creative Director for Iceberg (there have been so many designers that have come and gone for the brand), reinvigorated its purpose, that is essentially an outwear brand, but fashion and the aesthetics of clothing can be restyled as a trend without consciously aware of it, such is the 'street' looks revealing more of a direction of styles than not and it is the brands attempting to keep up with the shifting trends.  With a global economy and cross flows of interconnectivity, chasing markets has been a do or die process, while the uncertainty has only amplified the difficulty of gauging the next big thing.  However it's better that a fashion brand holds the line and creates a trend rather than follow one, to which Long has brought back, as mentioned, more of the durable structure and in someways the deconstruction layering of the decade old urban-goth active wear styles interfused with the dystopian look.  Which, as a fashion trend, in respect of the changing climate.  May hold up as the most practicable. 

Iceberg was always seen as the underground label for the the club and raver seen in the UK, before the internet and cell phones, if you viewed someone wearing a cool jacket, ala from an obscure brand, which was brought back from either a trip to Milan or New York.  It created mystique and iceberg has since  maintained its cultish following, which still resonates to this day.  Heavy set layering as jackets and outwear, very well fitted and presented.  With formal aspects of neckties as an accessory, the overall collection holds a urban appeal, with its directional cues. To which Long has maintained the purposeful theme of an underground stylization.     2020 could give rise and a return to the broken city of dystopia looks.