Zac Posen’s glamorous SF Ballet costumes are inspired by the city’s sunsets 

Designer Zac Posen moved to San Francisco only last year, when he became creative director of Gap Inc. But he’s already making his mark on the San Francisco Ballet.

The company’s show “Cool Britannia,” which opened Thursday and runs through Feb. 19, features Posen’s elegant, diaphanous costumes in a visually stunning version of choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s “Within the Golden Hour.” It’s the dramatic gesture from a company pushing ballet in new directions, especially in last season’s “Mere Mortals,” an acclaimed, AI-inflected adaptation of the Greek myth of Prometheus.

“Cool Britannia” is a trio of one-act forays into British dance:  Wayne McGregor’s “Chroma,” “Within the Golden Hour,” and Akram Khan’s “Dust.” Stylistically, they have little in common beyond their U.K. provenance. Together, though, they balance beauty with dramatic tension, at one point delivering a visual shock so sudden that a collective gasp passed through the War Memorial Opera House.

But the highlight is the costuming by Posen, a 44-year-old who has an extensive personal history with dance. He not only studied jazz, tap, and African dance from ages 6 to 18 and has designed costumes for other productions, but his partner is former New York City Ballet principal Harrison Ball. For “Within the Golden Hour,” Posen wanted to achieve a “pure-form moment” and “trance space” similar to a Mark Rothko canvas, he said.

“That takes restraint,” Posen told The Standard. “It’s not about bells and whistles. Music, physical body form, and color make you create your own story.”

The gold and crimson of his designs came straight from his recently adopted city. The process, he said, “took me into the sky. Sunrise and sunset here — those magic moments are so special. It’s the color wash of the ombrés of the sky.” 

The ballet featuring Posen’s designs is sandwiched between two equally stirring works. For “Chroma,” composer Joby Talbot took the raw, distorted guitars of the White Stripes and reimagined them for an orchestra. The Detroit indie-rock band’s songs “Blue Orchid” and “The Hardest Button to Button” come to life with a fuller range of percussion instruments than Meg White’s drum kit could contain. In every sense, it’s angular and frenzied, whereas “Golden Hour” is gorgeous and smooth, with a set as minimalist as an Apple Store. 

In the final act, “Dust,” the magic is once again in the lighting. An arresting and at-times spooky examination of pain and violence during World War I, “Dust” evokes a huge span of human emotion, from torture to group hugs. It’s intense but not especially romantic; the costumes reference historically accurate military bandages. Muted in tone, they’re nothing like Posen’s color-coordinated designs, but the juxtaposition makes the emotion of the final act all the more powerful. 

Though he costumed only one act of “Cool Britannia,” Posen left open the possibility of future collaborations with the city’s premier dance troupe. “It’s incredible, one of the best companies in the country, if not the world,” he said. “We’ll see.”