Here at the edge of the Rift, Iceland reveals itself in layers: spartan coastlines edged by dark mountains, pale glaciers stretching toward volcanic fields, the vastness of it all, quiet and severe.

We came here to chase light and texture and were met with stark splendour. What began as a mapped journey became a descent into the depths of the land—a place that both dwarfs and beckons, where every colour, every moment, is sharpened.

The team started in the Southeast, stepping out onto the Vestrahorn where light lingered in the air. Colours popped: cobalt, amber, streaks of fuchsia. Against the
landscape’s muted tones, our winter collection cut a fearless line, each colour emboldened against Iceland’s rough-hewn palette.

This wasn’t just a backdrop; we came to seek contrast. Here, the white of glaciers met black lava rock, each layer crisp and textured, like the shock of fresh frost against skin. The light itself shifted from sharp gold to twilight in seconds. One perfect shot might have sufficed, yet the light demanded more, and the team moved to chase it.

They drove north and west, hours on bare roads winding through land scarred by elemental collisions. Fields of volcanic rift, pocked with lava rock, gave way to untouched glaciers glinting cold and bright. In the South, where tectonic plates drift apart, the runners stood on land freshly minted by the earth’s
core—lunar in its austerity, ancient yet newly formed. They moved with grace and power, their imprints left in volcanic ash, breathing air laced with mineral sharpness.

Then, a descent from height to coast. Coastal plains unfurled in a strange, flat silence, broken only by sheer walls of mountains slicing vertically down. These desert-like plains became places where light pooled and spread, where colours
found their shadows and surfaces.

The textures seemed to rise underfoot, each runner in harmony with the terrain, bright colours threading through stark black and white—a fleeting, deliberate movement through ancient space, a human mark on the land.

In five days, they had chased Iceland’s many faces, but it always offered something new. Glaciers, rifts, mountains, desert plains—all primal, elemental—a land where time itself seemed raw, fractured. Even the best plans, the marked locations, the ideal shots, felt humbled. As the runners’ colours streaked through these primeval landscapes, Iceland absorbed them in its silence, leaving only whispers of their passage across timeless ground.

Words: Alex Ikhinmwin

Photography: Phil Gale & Emmie Collinge