We are beginning a new chapter in fashion while this millennium is logging in at a quarter. Things are in motion, changing quickly. Chanel will soon be helmed by a new designer and if rumors are true so will be Christian Dior, the two biggest players.  The frantic pace that new designer announcements have taken on remind of the football world where coaches are fired and hired several times within a season. Is this a good thing? Of course, not because time takes time – to change a culture and in fashion to develop a new look. Time which is generally no longer given not even to Hedi Slimane who put Celine on a stylistic and financial growth trajectory but still came to loggerheads with his directors who wanted to tell him what to do and he left. But now let’s talk about Alessandro Sartori and Zegna where the designer and the brand are in the middle of ascending to the very pinnacle of fashion by doing one thing. Taking their time to execute a complete brand overhaul. And with each collection that he presents, Sartori underlines how seriously he takes tailoring and the art of making clothes from fabric to finished garment – this time he centered attention on the Zegna signature yarn Vellus Aureum which reached a world record with a finesse of 9.4 microns in 2023 – and more importantly the attitude, the personality, the history of the wearer. He delved deep into the original wardrobe of founder Ermenegildo Zegna and reproduced garments that connected with him while he still added his technical touch of dropping jacket pockets up to five centimeters or resculpted shoulders to anchor a look differently by how it hangs. Sartori is like the kid in the candy store only here is a multi-billion-dollar company and he managed to create a collection which looked like a joyous romp through the vintage wardrobe of a movie star by a connoisseur dealer coupled with the sensibility for a modern less formal suiting foundation. You can only break the rules when you know, when you have culture, and this is what is happening at Zegna. Nothing is really what it looks like. There is trompe tweed, there are macro patterns and motifs throughout to mislead the first impression. At the end it is all within the framework of a fashion collection taken further by the obsessive spirit of an artistic director who understands that every collection is a laboratory for new ideas, for innovation and not for the same old honing of signatures and repetition and regurgitation of DNA.