A Double Debut! Inside Zankov and Diotima’s Friends-Only Post-Show Supper

Designers Henry Zankov and Rachel Scott marked their first runway shows with an intimate, candlelit dinner at Carton House—surrounded by the community that helped build their brands.

A momentous day in fashion unfolded Monday as longtime friends Henry Zankov of Zankov and Rachel Scott of Diotima each presented their first-ever runway shows. The pair met in 2017 while sharing a showroom in the early days of their labels, and since then they’ve built a shared community—leaning on each other as they expanded their worlds. Last night, Zankov and Scott celebrated their milestones with an intimate dinner alongside their village—the one it takes to survive as a designer today.

At Carton House, in a candlelit, navy-lacquered room above 25th Street, guests wore Diotima’s distinct crochet and Zankov’s signature light-catching paillettes while trading mid-fashion-week stories. This was no typical post-show soirée; it was a gathering of friends. “Rachel and I are very close,” Zankov told me. “It’s always felt very natural for us to be doing this together. We want to see each other succeed—all of us do.” Just off the catwalk, the CFDA’s 2024 Designer of the Year spoke to a special camaraderie in the air among this intimate group. Around the table were fellow designers Presley Oldham and Christopher John Rogers—peers and friends of Scott’s and Zankov’s. “We’ve all worked together for a long time,” the designer, also a 2024 CFDA winner, said. “I would be nowhere without my community. I have an independent business, and every person I collaborate with or who champions the brand is integral. I’m not spiritual, but I feel blessed.”

Across the table, Oldham—who designed all of the jewelry for Zankov’s runway—echoed the sentiment. For him, the chance to collaborate with peers and revel in each other’s success is the point. “I’m so grateful to work together and to be his friend,” Oldham said. “And I feel that with everyone here in this room. We’re all helping build that world in community with each other.” Rogers agreed: “We’re in a really interesting moment in fashion where we only, in many ways, have our communities. I’m really proud of everyone’s ascent.” The old stereotype of competition for competition’s sake, he added, feels like a relic. “We are a generation that is leading with love and support and friendship. It feels modern and honest to me. Rachel and Henry mean a lot to me.”

Glasses clinked in honor of the two designers and their achievements as guests tucked into chef Peter Callahan’s menu—fig-and-fennel salad, New England lobster rolls, lamb chops, and a passion-fruit pavlova. As fashion-week goers trickled in from evening shows, the room swelled with familiar faces: Saks director of fashion lifestyle Chloe King, photographer Hunter Abrams, writer Emilia Petrarca, Bergdorf Goodman CMO Yumi Shin, and more industry stalwarts took seats to toast their friends in fashion.