For Henry Zankov, DVF Is a Homecoming

For his first collection at the helm of Diane von Furstenberg, Henry Zankov began with advice from the woman whose name is on the door. “[Diane] always says to me, ‘It’s all about body language,’” the new artistic director tells Marie Claire.

That idea became the foundation for the Spring/Summer 2027 collection. Staged on Manhattan's High Line, directly above the brand’s Meatpacking District store, the show was a homecoming. Not only for the label, which hasn’t hosted a New York Fashion Week runway in almost a decade, but also for Zankov, who previously worked at DVF before leaving to launch his knit-centric namesake label that has since become a fashion industry favorite.

For his debut, Zankov didn’t try to rewrite the house codes so much as translate them into a modern-day lexicon. “The visual vocabulary of Diane von Furstenberg is so rich,” he says. “Everything is already here. It’s more about reworking it, looking through new fabrics and silhouettes, and making it fresh for today.”

According to the show notes, the collection centered on a “woman in motion” and celebrating “women who live their lives on her own terms.” In homage to the house’s most recognizable signature, a knee-length printed wrap dress opened the show. Colorful suiting, colorblocked outerwear, and saturated separates followed.

Fluid dresses in body-skimming jersey and gauzy chiffon, archival animal prints, and bow-finished blouses tapped into a distinctly Studio 54-era sensibility—the kind of clothes you could easily imagine von Furstenberg, who was in the audience, wearing out in late-’70s New York. The soundtrack drove the reference home: At one point, Norma Jean Wright’s 1978 disco track “I Like Love” played as evening tops and miniskirts with trailing detailing danced in the outdoor breeze.

“What I learned from [Diane] was how to work with the body: how clothes move, how they reveal, how they communicate,” Zankov wrote in the show notes.

But this was not simply an exercise in nostalgia. Zankov’s own signatures came through in graphic stripes, mismatched pattern combinations, and open-weave knitwear, lending an edge to DVF’s sensuality and femininity. (The pieces also winked back to his 2025 collaboration collection, which preceded his appointment.)

“Diane von Furstenberg is more overtly seductive and sexy, and Zankov is a bit more eccentric,” he said of where the two aesthetics meet. Visually, that came through in looks like the oversized cardigan coat and striped shirt, layered over a fitted pencil skirt. Or: a chartreuse-black fishnet knit skirt styled underneath a ‘70s-inflected safari jacket.

What Zankov wanted to come through most, though, was the effortlessness. “I wanted everyone to feel a sense of joy, but I also really wanted this idea of lightness to come through,” he said, pointing to light fabrics, silhouettes, and construction. “Because really DVF is about ease.”

If the challenge was figuring out how to honor one of New York’s most storied and joyful fashion brands without freezing it in the past, Zankov’s first answer was clear: keep the woman—and the clothes—moving forward.