Romeo Gigli

RISD faculty member Brian Goldberg first wore this supple washed-silk Romeo Gigli suit to the 1987 RISD Artist Ball at Rocky Point, an abandoned amusement park. Goldberg, at that time an art semiotics student at Brown, had discovered this, his first "adult suit," in a cardboard box at a sample sale and immediately latched on to its otherworldly fabric. The soft drape of the material represents the sea change in menswear of the 1980s, as the sturdy tailored woolens celebrated since Beau Brummell's time were passed over, especially in Italy, for an unstructured, informal, artistic look. The suit, a beloved part of Goldberg's wardrobe for many years, remains a sentimental reminder of standing apart-of brooding, even-in romantically dark attire at a carnivalesque bacchanale.