Wallpaper 9

away and the first generation of off-the-peg

suits were sold under a new brand name, with

the association with Zegna only introduced

slowly. ‘Like any new job, you don’t get to

grips with it on the first day,’ jokes Anna.

That caution was wise: it’s hard to imagine

now when, as Sartori puts it, ‘men have never

had so much choice or interest in what to

wear,’ but Zegna’s step into ready-to-wear –

providing three cuts of suits loosely targeted

at three age ranges, the fits resulting from

wide anthropomorphic studies – was a first

for Italian men. Until then, a good suit meant

a visit to a tailor – and as tailors were the

Zegna company’s bread and butter, not

upsetting them with this vision of future

fashion was a consideration, too.

‘Ready-to-wear presented a great

opportunity but also a great challenge, not

least because the 1960s and 1970s were

politically and socially very difficult years for

Italy,’ says Anna. ‘The ideas seemed radical.

We did a trousers-only line called Cantara

and, until then, trousers were only worn as

part of a suit. We wanted to present them

as a product in their own right, that you

interpreted according to your own style.

We had to do a lot of explaining as to how

each pair could be part of your lifestyle.

And this time was revolutionary rather than

evolutionary in that it was really when the

idea of creating a distinctively Italian lifestyle

came to the fore – Italian clothes, cars,

design, Ettore Sottsass, Brionvega. It wasn’t

just a matter of style. It was sociological,

a matter of concern to philosophers. The

likes of Umberto Eco were writing about

it. It was when the Italian fashion story

started – a few years later, all the designers

started to come through.’

Anna Zegna might well remember: she

was head of PR for Gianni Versace – enjoying

the pizzazz and the chance, as a woman, to

actually wear the clothes she represented –

before her father called her back into the

fold to play her part in the family firm’s next

chapter. (‘I asked if I could stay at Versace

for one more year, but he said no,’ she recalls.)

Of course, while Ermenegildo Zegna

continues to supply other designers – it

produces around 1,000 different cloths every

year, or around 12,000 if different colour

variations are counted – and even, behind the

scenes, to produce a lot of their tailoring,

these days it’s ranked more as one of them.

All the more so given the recent push towards

a brighter, more upbeat, more casual and

more complete conception of its menswear.

Earlier this year, the company acquired

Cappellificio Cervo, one of Italy’s historic

hat-makers, as well as – of all things – a

leather string manufacturer. Sartori has

designed an accessories line for the coming

autumn/winter using it. No vest is included.

‘When you look at menswear now, there’s

a lot of crazy styling, some of which is not

so easy to like,’ says Sartori, who grew up in

the region around Trivero and recalls seeing

the Zegna name everywhere he went on his

bicycle. ‘But the fact is that, such are the

changes in attitudes among men to the way

they dress, that even streetwear brands

are our competitors now. Zegna has had to

undergo something of a transformation. And

that doesn’t mean just creating some kind of

marketing story, but also thinking of relevant

ways of doing things.’

By way of example, Sartori returns to the

new cashmere, with its emphasis on natural

processes and sustainability – what might

sound like green-washing were it not for the

fact that Ermenegildo Zegna can genuinely

claim a track record in corporate social

responsibility that’s much older than the

zeitgeisty phrase. Today, it still puts five per

cent of its profits into environmental and

educational causes – and given that it’s now

a company with an annual billion euro-plus

revenue, that’s not to be sniffed at. It’s a

reminder that, for all that its cloths are

crafted and its tailoring crisp, ultimately

it’s about big business.

‘I think the company’s most important

contribution to menswear over that 50 years,

over its history, has been its achievement of

total verticalisation – the fact that the family

controls what it does from the sheep to the

shop,’ says Anna. ‘That level of integration

isn’t easy to do, but it really improves the

products. And it allows you to move forward

by building on what’s gone before without

having to rely on anyone outside of the chain.

That doesn’t make Ermenegildo Zegna a

brand that’s all about heritage. But it does,

I think, give it meaning.’ ∂

zegna.com

152 ∑

Intelligence

‘We had to do a lot of explaining as to how each

pair of trousers could be part of your lifestyle’

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

LEFT, NATURAL TEASELS

ARE USED TO BRUSH ZEGNA’S

RANGE OF FABRICS TO

CREATE A SOFT FINISH;

A FABRIC RESTS BEFORE BEING

FINISHED; YARN IS SPREAD

OUT TO CREATE THE WARP

(THE VERTICAL AXIS OF THE

FABRIC); THE DYEING STAGE