At Diane Von Furstenberg, Henry Zankov enters the building, literally. The brand’s new artistic director, who founded his namesake label in 2020, is now bringing his Crayola-colored patterns back to the DVF headquarters. Along, of course, with his own studio, which has just taken the grueling trip from Brooklyn to the Meatpacking District. It might be his studio’s first time inside the headquarters, but it certainly isn’t his. Zankov was appointed design director of knitwear around the mid 2010s, under the creative direction of Jonathan Saunders. Which must have been a good time, given he reunited with the brand just last September for an exclusive capsule collection (debuted at Bergdorf Goodman).
Zankov’s debut lands in September, during New York Fashion Week. You can thank CEO Graziano de Boni’s restructuring for all of this, who has been pulling control back in-house and re-centering the identity of a brand that had drifted between versions of itself. “Henry brings fresh energy, a strong point of view, and cultural relevance for a new generation to discover DVF,” he noted in a statement. 80-year-old Von Furstenberg, takes comfort in Zankov’s earlier stint at the brand too. “He and I, we come from the same tribe,” she told Vogue, connecting to Chișinău, once in the Kingdom of Romania, now the capital of Moldova.
Von Furstenberg will always be tied to that 1974 wrap dress (which you’ve also probably seen in the 2024 documentary Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge), jersey dresses, bold prints, and strong, feminine, easy silhouettes. Zankov, on the other hand, would love “ someone to come in and buy a cotton T-shirt, or a trench coat.” He shares his ideas with Vogue: “The thing about DVF is that the pieces all have to be made and designed in a way where they feel really effortless. The garments have to feel substantial, but also light. [..] I don’t think about this brand as necessarily just a fashion brand, I think it’s a brand about women. I mean, they come first. The person comes first.” September might as well be colorful.
