You could feel her emerging from every look. The woman of Zankov Spring 2026 is a moving target, our New York inspiration. She's a little sleepy, wrapped in absolute flair and someone who slips easily between contradictions. She’s coming home from the club in sequins and knit at 6 a.m., hair wrapped in a cotton headscarf, still glowing from the night before, and you're left wondering if she's off to the office or the Long Island Railroad to Montauk. Wearing micro shorts under an oversized trench, shredded tailoring paired with heels that are made to be worn in our city streets, she isn’t afraid of clashing prints, because her own life is a collage of city and nature, glamour and grit, exhaustion and exhilaration. Zankov isn’t just designing clothes for her, he’s mapping her moods, her contradictions, her restless ability to belong everywhere and nowhere at once. She’s the inspiration in each knit garb to silk flowing sleeves, and hopefully by spring, a little of her can live on each of us.
On Monday afternoon, designer Henry Zankov unveiled his Spring 2026 collection in an intimate Chelsea gallery, marking a confident evolution from his knitwear roots to a broader womenswear narrative. The show, set in the early light, felt like a declaration of change. Zankov is building worlds where texture, pattern and character can melt into each other.
Departing from the minimalist tones that dominated many runways this season, Zankov leaned into boldness. Endless unseen combinations of vibrant colors, metallic cottons, drop waist dresses, headscarves and silk wrinkled skirts moved with languid energy, while micro beach-inspired shorts flirted alongside raw Japanese denim that carried both casual ease and uptown poise. His signature knits reappeared, but this time stretched beyond daywear, morphing into shimmering nighttime club fits and pieces that spring and sing all across the foyer.
Like the calm French coast against New York city life, Zankov’s layered prints clashed and harmonized in equal measure, stripes on stripes, stripes against checkers, iridescent oversized paillettes over soft satin, frayed tailoring hanging from fluid draping. The inspiration pulled from vintage silhouettes but refused to feel nostalgic. Instead, it was messy, present and breathing.
In the front row, a mix of editors, buyers and tastemakers included Meta's Eva Chen, model and activist Bethann Hardison, designer Christopher John Rodgers and Indre Rockefeller. Buyers from Neiman Marcus, Harrods, Selfridges and Bergdorf Goodman were present, as the brand resonates commercially. And for the ones left standing, every nook and cranny filled with content creators and PR behind one another settling for just a glimpse. But the scene stayed true to Zankov’s underground edge that was less about any spectacle and more about letting the clothes charm the people who would wear them.
Compared to his earlier, knit-heavy collections, this one was expansive, moving from cozy and timeless knits into sharper tailoring, long flowing dresses and glowing nightlife looks. The duality between ease and edge floated through the show, macramé shredded cotton brushing the floor one moment, polished A-line cotton skirts cutting clean the next. It felt like watching a conversation between Zankov’s sleepy past and restless present, a complete balance of off-duty beachwear to after-dark elegance.
Zankov’s show didn’t only expand his vision, imagining a woman gliding from coastal mornings to urban nights, it also layered practicality and spontaneity into the way his woman dresses. The collection was a character study, a portrait of someone who doesn’t separate elegance from ease, or romance from work. He painted a portrait of a woman who finds peace in contradiction, allowing chaos to live only outside of her. With this shift beyond knitwear into a broader womenswear narrative, Zankov doesn't seem to have the slightest interest in chasing trends. His elusive woman moves fluidly through worlds, and in doing so, she defines his own trends.
Photography: Matt Weinberger
Related Articles Around the Web
