Oh, how good is it to be back in Milan in the summer for men’s fashion week. This has always been our favorite fashion season with cold Camparis, courtyard dinners and every two years a big football tournament. The Italian football team is making the country high with two convincing 3-0 wins and the post Covid trauma seems to disappear into the summer air. Same thing at Zegna where Alessandro Sartori is at the forefront of men’s designers who reinvent the industry. He opened the season yesterday afternoon with a film that ended with a festive dinner table on the water scene featuring all the models and Sartori in a big fashion win.

What the new Zegna is about?

Relentless fabric research, new tailoring and the definition of new shapes. It’s interesting that Sartori has been on an architectural parcours of Milan with his recent shows. He is becoming more and more an architect of fashion himself where oversized pockets are applied on T-Shirts just like giant windows on a Citterio building. His favored boxy shapes shine in kimono style jackets and work wear inspired shirts.

The secret ingredient?

Sartori does not reject the tailoring history of Zegna to bring the company forward but he wholeheartedly embraces it. He is behind the company’s mills to come up with new fabric mixes of wool and silk or vegetal fibers and the Use The Existing fabric initiative, which provided 40 percent of cloth for this collection. With suits gone from offices and hotel lobbies, these new tailoring possibilities come at the right moment to open the post pandemic world.

The colors?

Sartori seems to have looked closely at the counters of Milan’s gelaterias as his iced pink or pastel mint green have a soothing sorbet effect on the eyes. Mixed with black and concrete the Zegna coloring becomes more and more memorable as well.