EXPERIMENTAL and recycled fabrics are the highlights of Italian fashion brand Ermenegildo Zegna’s Winter 2020 collection.

Weeks before Milan’s first Digital Fashion Week, Italian brand Ermenegildo Zegna showed off its Winter 2020 collection to the press through an exclusive website.

Italy’s Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (National Chamber of Italian Fashion, shortened sometimes to Camera della Moda), said in a release last month, “Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana presents the first Milano Digital Fashion Week — July Issue, from July 14th to July 17th, an event promoting men’s and women’s collections. This is a concrete response to the need for promotion and business on the part of Brands, which will be able to present, on a digital calendar, their Spring/Summer 2021 men’s collections and Spring/Summer 2021 men’s and women’s pre-collections. The initiative is in line with a raft of concrete responses to the recently changed scenario in the fashion industry.”

Milan Fashion Weeks slated for June and September had been canceled.

The Zegna brand was founded in 1910 and is still operated by the Zegna family. It is the largest menswear brand in the world by revenue, according to the Financial Times,which reports a revenue playing at around a billion euros. In the Philippines, Ermenegildo Zegna is distributed by SSI.

The XXX collection takes sustainability seriously with the hashtag #UseTheExisting, with outfits made with a percentage of recycled fabric from its factories. Among these is a double-breasted coat closed not with buttons, but a knot.

“Fabrics get more and more experimental, further expanding the #UseTheExisting approach in weaves and mixes of natural with synthetic fibres,” says a press release. “Patterns such as moirè, macro check and digitalized landscapes are rendered in print, jacquard and devoré techniques — alone, or mixed — playing with layers and scales. Even plain fabrics like recycled cashmere flannel or Achillfarm, the suiting wool made entirely from the remnants of suit-making, are highly innovative.”

Zegna also has a collaboration with American brand Fear of God, which was previewed last March in Paris.

Speaking of Jerry Lorenzo, the founder of American brand Fear of God, Fear of God, Zegna’s artistic director Alesandro Sartori said, “The collection speaks to our audience just as it does Jerry Lorenzo’s, but we believe it can also appeal to a new client, thanks to the mix of Zegna’s impeccable tailoring and Fear of God’s concept of laid-back luxury. We have worked with great balance, without our ego’s ever surpassing one another, to create a unique new wardrobe. A perfect synthesis of our two souls: clothes to wear at any time of the day in order to feel good. And this is only the beginning, as our conversation has just begun.”

The collection’s objective, according to a press release is “identifying and following a new path of masculine elegance that is also wearable for women, the frank and authentic conversation between two apparently distant worlds defines an immediate and contemporary wardrobe. A new vocabulary that proposes aesthetic canons that are as free from pre-built models and gender paradigms as possible.”

The collaboration features lightweight suits that just about hang on the body, instead of wrapping it like a second skin. Belts and accessories are decidedly bohemian, tied around the waist and falling a bit above the knee. Streetwear aesthetics with brand names in bold typeface are seen here, as well as pinstripe creations in loose fits reminiscent of zoot suits. A heavy wool cardigan was paired with what appears to be track pants, in keeping with the current age of casual comfort.

As BusinessWorld noted about the fashion shows shown via livestream earlier this year, a lot of drab and sober grays were on the color palettes on the runways, and Zegna was no exception. The Modern Tailoring collection, with a more classical bent, also uses recycled fabrics, and follows the same principle to #UseTheExisting. “It is our aim to produce pieces with style that are long-lasting and responsible,” said a release. The more casual and forward Zegna collection, meanwhile, praised the modern dandy with eye popping shades of red, with a nod towards streetwear but still distinctively preppy (think of a schoolboy who covers up his uniforms after school to look cool). The meeting of two worlds isn’t limited to the aesthetic. It extends to the material, seeing as a lot of the pieces were executed in an innovation called Techmerino, a fabric exclusive to Zegna, made of Merino wool that had undergone processing in order to enhance it. “The notion that there is no luxury without sustainability is the only way forward,” said Mr. Sartori.

The collections had already been seen earlier this year. Its first ever collaboration, with American brand Fear of God, was previewed last March in Paris, while its XXX collections were seen at Milan Men’s Fashion Week. It was almost as if the grays on the runway and the recycling measures were a portent of the coming difficulties. Just a few months later, parts of Italy had been placed under lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Italy has been one of the hardest-hit regions by the pandemic: according to a June 9 report by Reuters, the number of confirmed cases rose up to 235,278. — Joseph L. Garcia

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