ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA XXX FOCUSES MORE EFFORTS ON SUSTAINABILITY IN NEWEST COLLECTION
Ermenegildo Zegna XXX kicked off Milan Fashion Week Men’s on Friday night at an epic show just outside the city center at Area Falck a monument to steely modernity that over the years slowly turned into a metropolitan wasteland. It will soon be transformed into a hub for health and science along with parks and residential areas, gaining a new continuity with the city, reverting from waste to opportunity. It is the same philosophy Ermenegildo Zegna is applying to textile resources moving forward, with the commitment to continue to create new fabrics from existing ones and the same drive applies to re-thinking tailoring for the modern world.
First unveiled last season, the brand’s “#UseTheExisiting” mindset is Ermenegildo Zegna’s commitment to using more wool and technical fabrics developed by the company’s textile division with innovative processes from pre-existing sources.
“It is our duty as denizens of this world to live responsibly,” said Zegna’s Artistic Director Alessandro Sartori. “I want to do it using the creative means I have at my disposal, which extend from the materiality of fabric- making, to the exquisite technicality of tailoring to the highly communicative aspect of show-making. Everything is connected, and everything conveys the same idea: we do not need to create the new from scratch, but we can reuse and reinvent the existing, getting progressive fabrics out of discarded ones, translating traditional techniques into innovative lifetime tailoring, turning an abandoned place into an area of creation.”
The “Achill” suit, entirely made with wool remnants from Zegna’s Achill farm, discarded during the process of suit making and then remixed and rewoven, fully closes the circle of traceability and sustainability.
A sharp industrial sensibility comes to the fore this season, channeled by the pragmatic suits composed of blousons, shirts or polo-shirts worn with matching trousers. Sartori sticks to an agenda rooted in tailoring’s essence, morphing tradition into something suited to the pace of a hyper-connected, global generation.
The silhouette is neat: boxy blousons, voluminous coats, sleek three-button blazers and slim one-button jackets with 3-D patch pockets are paired with lean yet soft trousers or fuller ones. Generous pockets migrate from the sportier items onto tailored ones while tailored details move to sport pieces, suggesting a mix of categories that expands the possibilities of use. Knits are building blocks that increase the modularity of modern dressing. Firm yet extremely light fabrics – wools, technical silks, – enhance the precision of the lines and the weightlessness of the sartorial construction, with flattened crinkles, photoprints of graphic assemblages and progressive stripe patterns giving rhythm to the surfaces. Macro chiné motifs have a painterly feel, mineral dyes add depth to denim.
In keeping with the functional mood, accessories are pragmatic: bold- soled printed boots or derbies; signature Claudio sneakers; wearable notebooks and pouches in small geometric shapes. The sense of industrial elegance is rounded by the mix of mineral hues of cement, steel, carbon, and matte black with earthy tones of brass, rust, red blaze, sand and matt gold and light notes of nude, aqua, leaf green, teal, and oxidized copper.
