Ermenegildo Zegna are successfully carrying out the most precarious balancing act in fashion: delighting edgy creatives while still appealing to sober businessmen. Darius Sanai delves into the story behind this burgeoning, family-owned Italian brand

"Darling, I can’t stand it, I just have to have that fleece! What can I do?”. This was the greeting I received every morning from one of the fashion people in the fashion-based company in which I work, for much of last year. The object of his desires (and it was a he) was a particularly delectable garment made from vicuna, the wool from a rare South American species that had been adorning the window display of a luxury menswear store on Bond Street in London, just down the road from us, for weeks. The item had the irresistible (for my fashion person) twin attributes of being made from a very rare, highquality fabric; and being extremely ‘directional’, that is to say fashionable, in its design. Wearing it would establish him as both a pioneer and a connoisseur. The only thing that prevented him from buying was a ticket price of around three months’ salary -excessive even for a fashion junkie.

Scene change: Geneva, sometime last summer. The five-star hotel lobby is filled with cigarette-munching Middle Eastern gentlemen of a certain age and wealth; their chauffeurs await, watching TV on the Sat Nav screen in long wheelbased Mercedes S-Classes outside. The gentlemen are sipping tea and coffee, conducting business with their bankers and on their mobile-phones. Their suits, while made of the best cloth a considerable amount of petrodollars can buy, are conservative, classical: three buttoned jackets, pleated trousers, in muted mid-greys. Expensive, yes, and beautiful in terms of raw material; but to a fashionista, as cutting edge as their grey socks and alligator-hide shoes (that is to say, not at all).

My colleague and the gentlemen from the Gulf occupy opposite ends of the fashion spectrum, as each would happily admit. And yet there is one thing that binds them closely together, whether they know it or not, and it’s not simply membership of the male sex. For their favourite clothes are the same brand. The vicuna fleece that my colleague couldn’t afford, and the skinny jeans and i-Pod jacket that he did wear every day were from Ermenegildo Zegna. And the gentlemen in the smoke-filled lobby of that hotel in Geneva were mostly wearing Ermenegildo Zegna trademark Couture suits.

For the highly directional and the highly conservative to come together in one menswear brand is extremely rare. James Bond may have had a passion for silken Brioni suits, but you wouldn’t catch a Hoxton/Lower East Side trendy within a mile of their wares. Equally, the Gulf will run out of oil before you’d catch the average local tycoon in Maison Martin Margiela or Jean-Paul Gaultier. (With the notable exception of Kuwait’s Majed al-Sabah, celebrated proprietor of the Villa Moda group and also known as the ‘Sheikh of Chic’, but that’s another story.)

But the family-owned Milanese menswear brand has tried, and succeeded, in becoming master of two very different strands of the luxury male attire market. “To the sophisticated consumer, we bridge three areas,” says Anna Zegna, member of the owning family and the company’s Image Director. “Ermenegildo Zegna, which is timeless and sophisticated. Zegna Sport, which is urban and active. Z Zegna, which is edgy and directional. The underlying factors which span all of these areas are top quality, innovation, and creativity.”

Anna Zegna, perfectly groomed, is trim, compact, with lively eyes, speaking highbrow English with a brushstroke of Italian at the end of certain words. It is Anna who spearheaded the Zegna and Music project, which has made the house the most prominent couturier to some of the world’s leading classical musicians, like Valery Gherghiev and Maxim Vengerov, along with a philanthropic sponsorship of events across the classical music spectrum.

Zegna, 100% owned by the current generation of the family (grandchildren of the original Ermenegildo Zegna), made 843 million euros in global revenue last year, and has 525 points of sale (including 253 wholly-owned stores) around the world. Yet, when you consider its position atop the twin peaks of luxury and ‘edginess’ for men, it’s all the more remarkable that the company really started off as a supplier of cloth.

Like Loro Piano for cashmere, Zegna’s wool was renowned across Italy throughout the 20th century and sold to myriad garment makers; it was only in the final quarter of the century that the second generation of the family pushed forward the ‘vertical integration’ of the business that has allowed it to bask in the authenticity it does now. When you wear an item of Zegna clothing, you can trace back its lineage thus: sold to you by a Zegna employee; constructed by a Zegna employee (in one of 13 proprietary ‘production units’ spanning from Italy to Mexico); made from cloth woven by a Zegna employee at the original Lanificio (wool mill) Ermenegildo Zegna in Trivero, in the foothills of the Alps above Milan; with cloth hewn from wool shorn from a Zegna sheep on a Zegna-owned farm. No other menswear brand can offer this ‘sheep to shop’ service (they don’t call it that, though I can’t imagine why not) which is the ultimate feelgood factor about the brand.

It’s safe to say, though, that our Middle Eastern gentlemen know nothing about the origins of the sheep from which their suits, ultimately, were made: and Zegna would be nothing without its design and, more recently, its technology. Want a suit that you can throw a cup of coffee on? Try the micronsphere stain resistant fabric. What about the finest cloth that money can buy, a suit so ethereally light that it feels like you’re wearing feathers? No problem - just ask in the Couture section.

The company opened a new, 2,300 square metre flagship store in Milan last year, a temple to men’s fashion; other new ‘global stores’ in New York and Tokyo serve as effective Zegna ‘capitals’ for America and Asia respectively. Meanwhile smaller stores, like those in London and Paris, are showcasing the company’s clever shopping concept. Walk into the Bond Street store in London, redesigned last year, and instead of racks of trousers on one side and jackets on the other, you have integrated displays with clothes sold as ‘packages’. So a deconstructed linen jacket will sit next to a white and blue striped shirt, white trousers, and a light white rainproof overcoat; sometimes shoes and belts complete the picture. “The idea is to make the experience intuitive and interactive,” says a Zegna spokesman.

If you’re more of an old-fashioned type and simply want a quick replacement for a lost/ruined suit, then you’ll be directed to the ‘Quick Response Unit’; not a squad of fashion policemen, sadly, but the next best thing, namely a section reserved for the basics: black, navy and grey ready-to-wear suits, displayed in an area of their own, with matching shoes, etc. It’s the area for those who have no time for cream linen jackets.

There has, however been something of a revolution in the world’s leading men’s costumer recently. In case you’d missed it: Zegna has introduced a new style of men’s suit. Previously you could wear a ‘Couture’, which was classical Italian style, with softer shoulders, a curved chest pocket and pronounced waist - which is great but ever so slightly ‘Goodfellas’. Or, like the majority of Zegnaphiles, you’d have a ‘Roma’ suit: the trademark, elegant, Zegna business suit, which among its many other attributes does a good job of making men look taller and slimmer than they are (I am a great fan). And now, you can go in and order a Made to Measure ‘Milano’ suit. This has a slimmer silhouette, narrower shoulders, slim (ideally flat-fronted) trousers and is a sublime updating of the classical look. I bought one and my only caveat is: steer clear of the spaghetti alla carbonara, because this is a beautiful garment for what Zegna tactfully calls the ‘more athletic form’. If you qualify, there is no more beautiful suit in the world.

After some considerable immersion in all aspects of Zegna, I am still a little amazed that the brand can carry both fashionista and conservative businessman so well; they won’t tell me, but I am sure the bulk of business comes from the latter, and the credibility from the former (and I am sure the businessmen like to bask in the halo the creatives give to the brand). If there is one flaw in Ermenegildo Zegna’s seemingly perfect world view, it is perhaps that the distinction between the sub-brands isn’t all that distinct. ‘Ermenegoldo Zegna’, the main brand, is the label on the oil gentlemen’s suits, but it was also the label carried on the unattainable vicuna fleece, though you might have expected to be Z Zegna, the ostensibly more directional brand. And Z Zegna has disappeared from the London shop altogether. Though you can buy Zegna Sport there.

But no matter. As long as they’re producing clothes like this, with the kind of vertical integration only a family who are in the business for the long run can grant (I wouldn’t be surprised to hear the Zegna sheep are made into nutritious soup for local workers once they have finished service), we need companies like Ermenegildo Zegna. Anything that can bring my eco-warrior fashionista together with oil potentates has to be a force for good in these times.