Henry Zankov’s brand is heating up, so it’s only right that his next collaboration would be with Starbucks on limited-edition coffee cups forthcoming.
Placed on every seat at his second runway show Thursday were Starbucks gift cards. “Your essential coffee runs are on us this fashion week,” the box read. Leave it to Zankov to give sluggish showgoers exactly what we need to soldier on.
But he didn’t rely on caffeine alone to do it. Music is always a vibe-shifter for Zankov — whatever he’s plunging into at the moment flows directly from his ears into the clothes he’s making — and this season, it was the English rock rebel PJ Harvey who sparked his inspiration.
“There’s a moodiness to her,” said Zankov backstage, which led him to dark neutrals, striking a different chord for the designer, whose name has become synonymous with loud color. That being said, the collection’s base of charcoal, olive and burgundy is precisely what made an occasional flash of emerald on the train of a miniskirt or yellow on a cardigan woven into stereo waveform all the more electrifying.
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Channeling an angsty ’90s look, not unlike Harvey’s own, pirate stripes, skinny scarves and disheveled knits were thrown together with abandon, but there was a medieval undercurrent as well, bubbling up in a pair of slashed jester pants, fluted Renaissance sleeves and beading and pailletes resembling armor.
Pressed about this, Zankov reckoned from where within him it came: “It’s a little bit more witchy, I guess, and romantic… I wanted this somber feeling, like the times we’re in right now, we cannot help but express ourselves in a different way.”
It may have stemmed from his own angst, but Zankov’s instinct to lean darker is in-sync with where fashion is headed. The Dark Ages are revealing themselves to be a major trend this season.