THE JOURNAL
“We need to create a new language around tailoring, it’s about a new mood,” said Mr Alessandro Sartori as he unveiled his spring/summer 2022 collection at Zegna. The digital showcase (it was still the dark days of lockdowns and travel restrictions) served to highlight the beguiling craft of the Zegna research and development departments in crafting light-as-air clothing; airy suiting against a brutalist backdrop in industrial Milan. Just the setting, said Sartori, to underline his message of ease and fluidity. “I wanted to convey a sense of freedom,” said the creative director of the house. Precisely the mood that’s permeated the world over in the last couple of years, distilled into sartorial form.
“I think knitwear will become a bigger and bigger force in men’s wardrobes”
Sartori’s modus operandi, since he took the reins of the historic tailoring institution in 2017, has been to deconstruct traditional suiting and infuse it with a lightness and freshness. Take the weight and heft out, but with the construction and craft you’d expect from a titan such as Zegna. To that end, the designer – who hails from the northern Italian alpine region where Zegna has been based since its founding in 1910 – has introduced a sportswear strand to the sartorial DNA of the house. Take, for example, the lack of standard upright shirting.
“I think knitwear will become a bigger and bigger force in men’s wardrobes,” says Sartori. For instance, the sweaters that replace shirts under suits. They’re elevated beyond casual jersey iterations through exceptional fabrication – silk and cotton-blend with leather trims. Or a seemingly simple short-sleeved polo shirt, except the jersey is twinned with merino wool. Another nod to athleticism comes via the sweatpants with elasticated waists – a mainstay of Sartori’s Zegna – but rendered in softest wool, designed to be worn with a suit jacket. It speaks volumes that the house’s once-besuited CEO Mr Gildo Zegna, grandson of the founder, now adopts sweatpants with smart blazers. Even more rustic, heavy-duty twill – traditionally a worker-attire material – is infused with silk and cotton for a combination of Italian finesse and rugged ease.
It helps, of course, that the Zegna mills in Trivero, near the Swiss border, are a benchmark of excellence in the world of craft, with the research and development department continually tinkering with formulas to come up with new ways to experiment with new fabrics. A technical material, for example, applied to suiting, or leathers and wools pressed so that they’re reduced to a featherlight weight. Another innovation is to create tailored jackets and trousers in the same material as a shirt. Nestled in the valley of a breathtakingly beautiful conservation area – the Oasi Zegna, which spans some 38 square miles of forest and mountain terrain – the process in creating them employs natural materials (clothes washed in rainwater from the nearby mountains, which is then treated and returned into the ecosystem) with minimal impact on the environment.
In an era where so much is digital and virtual – fashion is already metaverse-ready – it’s heartening that some things, such as Zegna’s lightness of touch and incredible fabrication – have to be experienced in person.