Ermenegildo Zegna presents SS'20 Couture collection
June 18, 2019: With millions of tons of clothes going into trash, coupled with the imminent need to keep up with trends and fashion dynamics, the consequences are gruesome and unfavourable. Hence, major fashion houses are now taking up the reigns to create change. The Ermenegildo Zegna XXX SS’20 show is where the brand takes up the challenge.
The runway unfolds below extremely high ceilings that once hosted Area Falck: a monument to steely modernity that over the years slowly turned into a metropolitan wasteland. The dismissed area, however, will soon be re-qualified by Milanosesto into a hub for health and science, along with green and residential areas, gaining a new continuity with the city and a new meaning, reverting from waste to opportunity. It is the same philosophy Zegna is applying to textile resources, to create new fabrics from existing ones. #UseTheExisting is the byword.
The silhouette is neat: boxy blousons, voluminous coats, sleek three-button blazers and slim one-button jackets with 3D 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 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.
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. In keeping with the functional mood, accessories are pragmatic: boldsoled printed boots or derbies; signature Claudio sneakers; wearable notebooks and pouches in small geometric shapes. The color palette matches that of industrial elegance with mineral hues of cement, steel, carbon and matt 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.
“It is our duty as denizens of this world to live responsibly” - says 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 fabricmaking, 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”.
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