Fairly lately, Henry Zankov, the proficient designer of all issues knit-y and sweater-y of the label Zankov, noticed the Sophie Calle exhibition on the Musée Picasso in Paris. A quote on the wall caught his eye. “It’s actually stunning,” he mentioned the opposite week at a preview of his fall 2024 assortment at his dwell and work house in Brooklyn. “It goes one thing like this: ‘I purchased a home simply so I might bury my sweater right here.’” Anybody at in the present day’s presentation who additionally may need spied mentioned quote would have had their thoughts whirring like loopy attempting to determine the monetary outlay. Given how very good Zankov’s fall assortment is, you’d want many, many homes for the various, many sweaters (and the remaining; this can be a entire knit world) that you just’d need to maintain for posterity. (I do know, I do know, we will all however dream. Possibly we’d higher keep on with the various, many sweaters and simply have the one place to relaxation your head—and your knits.)

Given the sort of emotional connection that was at work right here—the depth of feeling for what he’s designing and for what you may need to put on—Zankov named this assortment (appropriately sufficient) Maintain Me Nearer. “I wished that sensation of being hugged, of getting somebody to be in your garments with you,” he mentioned. “It’s additionally that feeling of safety, however on the identical time, I don’t need the wearer to really feel overwhelmed.” How that performed out was as a better emphasis on the three dimensionality of what he designs—an strategy which embraced scarf-ing and blanket-ing, for need of two higher phrases. However that’s primarily what was occurring right here—a rounded, cocooning sense of consolation with planes of knitted material softly folding and draping across the physique in a means that by no means appeared cumbersome or clumsy, merged with a silhouette chorus that was elegantly lengthy and sinuous.

Zankov opened his presentation with a chunky scarlet knit worn to slip-slide off the physique, teamed with a fuzzy textured skirt in dusky pink. From then on, we had the uber-light merino wool paneled outsized sweaters in ochre or purple. Burnt orange was used for a gown coat and a costume with an identical outsized scarf with pockets, all magicked up from a yarn that had been knitted twice over. One other glorious and creative approach was used for white and black items striated with stitches, which from time to time delightfully bubbled up like pom poms. The twinset was reinvented as a chunky brown and ecru marl cardigan and matching sweater, edged with electrical blue and worn with slouchy flannel pants. Zankov included a couple of—business time period arising right here—wovens (i.e, non-knitwear items) to spherical out the look and his world. A loden gown coat was a standout over a zingy acid inexperienced knit and rib trousers combo.

Inspiration-wise, he may need been trying to artist Nathalie du Pasquier, who additionally cofounded the Memphis group. Trying to her work impressed him to make use of grey for the primary time, so as to add to his personal richly unique palette. The lean lanky shapes got here from the sort of garments favored by the French chanteuse Barbara, famend for her gamine crop and risqué lyrical content material. (Touchingly, Zankov talked about he related along with her as a result of her look reminded him of his mother when she was again in St. Petersburg within the ’70s.) But all that apart, what you come again to right here is that this can be a designer with a robust sense of craft and approach, married to an aesthetic that resonates as a result of it’s considerate and regarded—and his. There can absolutely be no greater reward this specific New York season, which has often had the distinct whiff of the derivatively acquainted about it. All that was acquainted right here was that Zankov appeared precisely like, nicely, Zankov.