admin You don’t need Henry Zankov to tell you that this season he was thinking about “seduction through color.” One look at the slim short sleeve maxi dress in thick stripes of turquoise and tangerine orange is enough to make one weak at the knees. “This season I wanted it to go further; I still wanted to use color to bring you in, but I also wanted to show the body a little bit more through stitches, through new techniques, and also through new silhouettes,” he explained. Walking through the gallery space that housed Zankov’s fall presentation felt a little like being at an illicit party: a barely-there yellow knit sweater with airbrushed details in tropical green and azure; a midi-length long sleeve dress with sheer stripes interspersed between red-orange and rose pink stripes; a tank in blue, black, green and yellow vertical stripes worn with a matching-but-not skirt in the same color and pattern except he switched the yellow stripe for white. It was as bacchanalian as color and texture can be. Some color names this season included rhodolite, chrysocolla, sunstone, hortensia blue, and bergamot yellow.
“The collection is called ‘Lighten Up,’ so I wanted the color to feel light and to glow from within,” said Zankov. “Through the use of open stitches or light yarns I wanted everything as light as possible.” Zankov has experimented with wovens in previous collections, and this time he really landed on some wonderful shirting pieces. Those included a shirt with stripes of varying widths and shades of blue and yellow, and a truly great pair of long shorts constructed from a shirt tied around the waist in red and green and blue striped fabric. A white cotton jacket with a retro stripe detail at the chest and matching cargo pants looked quite at home among the more colorful options.
Zankov also expanded his “womenswear” offerings with dresses that could work for a variety of occasions like an open-weave orange sleeveless tank dress embellished with blue sequins, and a decadent long cream dress with an open weave design and horizontal stripes in yellow, black, green and red. (Although at their core Zankov’s clothes are for whoever feels attracted to them; he called these “women-forward but gender-fluid.”)
Zankov’s artist collaboration this season was with the British Helen Bullock, whose illustrations of fruits appeared on a number of pieces in the collection, including a tank featuring a cherry and the word “Ripe” written underneath. “It’s kind of a little innuendo without being too obvious,” he said with a sly smile.
