The hyper-fluid tailoring of Zegna's SS23 collection When technique and art meet like man and nature

 Yesterday, in Trivero's Oasi Zegna, and to be more specific on the rooftops of the historic Lanificio Zegna in the green mountains of Piedmont, Zegna's SS23 show was held - the "out of doors" closing of Milan Fashion Week and a decisive turning point for the language that Alessandro Sartori, Gildo Zegna and their team have created for the 100-year-old brand. «All of our values start and end there», said Gildo Zegna during Sunday's press preview, expressing his intention to create a show that would concretize the brand's philosophy in every aspect. Indeed, the collection was intended to have, on the level of design as much as on the level of technique as on the level of pure event, the tone of a decisive change as well as a compromise that brings together both the more traditional soul of the brand and the more modern and innovative one. Innovations have come on the level of sustainable design, material tracking, and the genderlessness of some garments designed to fit a woman's body by size alone. These, of course, are benchmarks that most fashion brands set for themselves - the uniqueness of Zegna lies in its ability to turn these parameters not into boundaries to adapt to but into starting points for making its designs more efficient and sophisticated. 

Beyond the message and values of the brand in this new phase of its life (the IPO was last December and has greatly expanded the company's strength) and beyond the values communicated through this collection and previous ones, the most interesting operation here concerns the proposition Zegna makes about the nature of luxury. The technical silk jacket that does not wrinkle, say, is a luxury product not only because of the quality of construction and materials, but because of the irreplicable characteristics of the fabric itself. Sophistication, in other words, is not only about the outward aspects of a certain product but about the very material of which that product is made. It is sophistication on all levels, from the visual and tactile to the molecular, as exaggerated as that term sounds - and it is also a sophistication linked to a long heritage. If the future of luxury is unknown, yesterday Alessandro Sartori gave us a first and very important glimpse of it.