ZANKOV’s Spring/Summer 2024 collection, titled Lighten Up is the brand’s most sensual outing yet. The title is a play on words; this collection is interested in lightness both in terms of weight and in terms of luminosity. ZANKOV accurately describes the themes of this collection as seduction, lightness, and luminescence.
The collection consists of many ZANKOV signatures; striped sweater dresses, knit polo shirts, and check print co-ord sets, but this time he’s much more interested in exploring and showcasing the human form. While his previous collections have showcased his love for playing with color, here he manipulates light by literally opening windows to the body within the garments through open-weave knits, cut-outs, and innovative ways to create transparent stripes.
ZANKOV presented their collection at the Agora Gallery in Chelsea. Models posed amidst artwork by Thomas Barger. I always collaborate with an artist every season, shared designer Henry Zankov, For me, it’s not about fashion all the time; it’s about design and art. I feel very much closer to the art world than I do to the fashion world.
Barger is an artist and designer known for sculpting chairs. He takes wooden chairs and coats them in plaster, creating a rounder shape and allowing for play with color. Similarly, we can think of Zankov as a sculptor, with knitwear being his medium of choice and the human body being his canvas. The wonderful thing about Zankov’s artwork is that we can live in it.
Barger and Zankov are both gay men who come from conservative environments (Barger is from the rural midwest and Zankov is from Russia) and use their mediums as a way to break free from these upbringings. But for them, queerness is not a complete rejection of their culture. As the show notes eloquently explain it, [their work is] symbolic of accessing a queer identity through references to a conservative past. Embracing and embodying queerness is also a form of lightening up.
Zankov’s work has always been gender-neutral, but as Zankov explains it, this was a happy accident. I’m not really designing on purpose that way. Because of the nature of knitwear, all of my friends started sharing the clothes. And now my customers share their clothes with their partners or whoever they’re with, so there’s this natural crossover of gender-fluid dressing. In this collection, however, with its unabashed eroticism, the queerness shines brighter.
When I entered the gallery (I arrived promptly at noon and was one of the first people in the room) I noticed the models standing amidst the artwork. As the minutes passed more people shuffled in, many of them were dressed in ZANKOV clothing– he has steadily built a loyal clientele– and the line between model and guest became blurred. Since the models were technically also artwork, perhaps this suggests that in ZANKOV designs, anyone can be a work of art.