Collaborations are 10-a-penny in the fashion industry. It’s not often that they cause the MR PORTER team to erupt in a chorus of synchronised “Ooooh”s. That’s exactly the sound that echoed through our offices, however, when we first heard the news that ZEGNA was designing a capsule collection with The Elder Statesman. Here was a collaboration that achieved what all good collaborations should set out to do: it just made sense.

This wasn’t just a meeting of two like-minded companies, but of two innovators. On the one hand, you have a giant of Italian luxury, whose vertically integrated supply chain is seen as a blueprint for traceability and sustainability in the fashion industry; on the other, you have a darling of the Los Angeles fashion scene, whose wildly colourful creations have changed the way we think about high-end cashmere.

What really made this collaboration stand out, though, was less what the two brands have in common and more what makes each of them unique. They might speak the same language but they each have their own style and sensibilities, with the soft, elegant tailoring of Mr Alessandro Sartori’s ZEGNA a stark contrast against the vibrant colours and quirky patterns that have become The Elder Statesman’s design signature.

And if we were excited about the collaboration before, the dial turned up to 11 when we finally got our hands on the clothes. Designed by the ZEGNA team in collaboration with Ms Bailey Hunter, creative director of The Elder Statesman, it’s a collection that manages to capture the spirit of both brands, an easy-to-wear mix of heritage styles and rich colours blending Italian sartorialism with laid-back So-Cal cool. (It is also, as you’d expect, ludicrously luxurious.)

To mark the launch of the ZEGNA x The Elder Statesman collection on MR PORTER – which is available now – we sat down with the founder of The Elder Statesman, Mr Greg Chait, on a rare visit to London earlier this summer, when he told us more about the process behind this unique collaboration.

MR PORTER: What was your reaction when ZEGNA got in touch?

Greg Chait: I was immediately interested. I love what they do. They think in the long term, which is not so common in today’s world. And they’ve built their own vertical supply chain, which is something I’m very big on, having done the same thing myself.

What does vertical supply chain mean in this context?

If you’re making a piece of knitwear, for example, there are several steps. You have fibre that needs to be turned into yarn, which then needs to be knitted or woven into fabric, and then it potentially needs to be washed or dyed, and then cut, sewn and finished. And if you’re talking about vertical, it means that your company is involved in every single step.

And what are its benefits?

The obvious benefit is that you know exactly what is happening at each step. You know that there’s quality at every step, and because there’s quality you can be assured that people and processes were treated well.

For me, though, what it really means is that there’s soul in what you make. When you’re wholly part of the process, your energy and your hard work – because making clothes well is hard to do – is reflected in the finished product. That’s my answer when anyone asks why The Elder Statesman is so different: it’s got soul.

Do people recognise and value such an intangible quality?

I kinda have my own theory on the matter, which is that humans are hard-wired to recognise something that has been made with love and care. It’s a primal, instinctive thing. So, people who don’t know anything at all about brands can still see a quality product and say, “That’s nice.” And people absolutely do value it, because it’s becoming less and less common that things are made this way.

Have you noticed a general deterioration in the quality of clothing during your time in the industry?

Absolutely. We’re faced with so much poor quality in today’s products. When I started out 15 years ago, a lot of things were made well. I’m just about old enough to recall when the Japanese brands began to hit the market in the 1980s, and, you know, that was the level of quality you needed to be at to get into the distribution network. Whether due to an intensified consumer cycle or increased manufacturing costs, that’s not the case anymore.

Are you glad you started out when you did?

If was any younger, I might not have even been aware that that level of quality even exists. If you weren’t a consumer a decade and a half ago, you may never have experienced it. And that’s not your fault: quality standards have deteriorated so much in that time that you don’t even know to know. But going back to what I said earlier, we are still programmed to recognise quality when we see it. And to the human brain, which has evolved over the course of millions of years, that period of 10 to 15 years isn’t a long time.

What are the unique qualities each party brought to this partnership?

What’s cool about collaborations is that both companies have their unwritten rules, and by working together you give each other confidence to step out of your lane and try new things. Maybe this is a very California word, but I call it permission. Because our foundation is in colour exploration, this gave ZEGNA permission to explore colour in ways they haven’t been able to before.

And what did working with ZEGNA give you permission for you to do?

Just having access to this huge infrastructure of factories and being able to work with ZEGNA’s genius product developers, which opened us up to try new things, to try tailoring in a way we haven’t before, to make pieces like this beautiful corduroy suit.

What are you going to take away from it?

Working with such a longstanding company and seeing those shared values, that same spirit, was so inspiring to me. Hopefully we’ll be there ourselves in another century.