Zegna: A new dawn in tailoring

Oscar winners, uber influencers, surfer dandies, Italian race car drivers, edgy skateboarders, a regiment of buyers and scores of traditional fashion editors turned out in force on Friday night in a chilly Milan for the latest Zegna show, enjoying another memorable tour de force of paradigm-busting menswear.

Once again, Zegna creative director Alessandro Sartori took his fans on a jaunt to the outskirts of Milan, this season a wickedly disused 19th century plant with mammoth glass walls. Setting the stage for a celebration of modern day mode and menswear.

The cast marching through the former iron foundry, around a mammoth art installation courtesy of artist Anne Patterson. A dense, maze like hanging of acid blue and lime ten-meter-long ribbons, though whose main aisle the stars walked for photographers pre-show. Led by Mahershala Ali, the double Oscar winning thesp who is the star of the current Zegna ad campaign, hyper assured in a slim-line mat aubergine suit.

Menswear today is witnessing a whole new revival in tailoring, powered by novel fabrics, and this show trumpeted that sea change.

For fall 2020, Sartori further refined his new directional suit, with the faintly wrapped jacket paired with sculpted tailored harem trousers. Made in cool jacquards, broken pattern Prince of Wales or eccentric herring bones they all looked great. They were classical but also unpredictable, capturing the new yearning for gentlemanly attire with unexpected polish and patina.

Sartoriʼs outerwear was equally startling. Parka puffers in jumbled up pads of varying sizes, or artfully distressed leather donkey jackets. Best of all the enveloping cashmere wrap coats cut with elephantine arms.

Moreover, the soundtrack was completely in tandem with todayʼs moody era. With French duo Double Mixte blaring out of speakers, with their hit tune Romance Nore.

Dark, yes but with dignity, from the Sartori, the most accomplished Italian tailor of the 21st century.

Zegna: A new dawn in tailoring

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