excerpt: Natasha Zinko. Spring/summer 2026 - London Fashion Week.

  

"...And the hunger for anything Western, more so American, began to rev up, however at the time, you would wear your odd fitted sports jacket, Nike 'rips offs' until they fell apart and were scroungy and dirty looking, yes cue the Gsvalia brothers, homage to the 1990s Tbilisi rave scenes, be it Demna's $2500 'dirty' looking Balenciaga sneakers.  Such was the differentials  between East and West youth cultures throughout the 1990s, until Citibank in 1990, started giving out credit cards to Polish youth.

And ironically, Zinko may, in her own way, is trying to reestablish some aspects of hedonism into our currently confused society, which is teetering on the edge of destruction.  Yet, it appears to be, as you would expect, a Eastern European version of 1990s stylizations, which is more backlash, than leading a charge of aesthetics with social meaning.  An indulgent protest song, showcasing that we are actually more conservative than our grandparents/parents when they danced at Studio 54, with the distinct possibility Russia had invaded West Germany the next morning.  They did protest with a hedonic focus on sex, drinking, smoking and dancing to be that shared chaos, because it may all end in a thermonuclear flash.  Citing for her Spring 2026 collection, that it's "important to be a mess sometimes", viewing the early 1990s as the influence, being nonchalant messy to be that inflection point to change the whole political and social construct..."

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(A.Glass 2025)

Full review:  chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/09/natasha-zinko-springsummer-2026-london.html