For its latest runway show, Zegna creates a serene oasis in Dubai

In the blaring 39-degree heat of a Dubai summer, Zegna constructed a serene oasis in the city’s Janus Rostock-designed Opera House to present its S/S 2026 collection – the menswear house’s first show outside its native Italy, and the unofficial start of menswear month (Pitti Uomo begins next Tuesday, with further stops in Milan and Paris following).

Part of a ‘Villa Zegna’ installation that will remain in the Dubai Opera for the coming days, the dramatic mise-en-scene was conceived to pay ode to both the natural landscapes of Dubai (a sandy desert-like floor stretched across the space) and the architecture and gardens of founder Ermenegildo Zegna’s Trivero mansion, the Italian birthplace of the house.

Zegna holds its S/S 2026 show in Dubai

An accompanying soundscape, played during guests’ arrival, featured birdsong recorded at Oasi Zegna, a lush national park in the Biella Alps, where the house’s first wool mill was opened in 1910 (in the century since, over 500,000 trees have been planted by Zegna in the locale). ‘Ermenegildo’s vision is still an inspiration, the determination to see beyond, sharing the legacy of Oasi Zegna around the world, possibly bigger,’ said the house in a statement.

The collection itself, designed by artistic director Alessandro Sartori, captured a mood of simplicity and ease – albeit rendered in superlative fabrications – which has defined the Italian designer’s near-decade-long tenure at the house so far. A feeling of lightness ran throughout the collection’s clever layering: gently crumpled blazers were designed to be as lightweight as cotton, while roomy collarless shirts, some double-layered, took inspiration from the Indian Nehru jacket.

Fabrics spanned linen, leather and silk – the last making up a suit that weighed just 300 grams for easy packing (the idea of travel infused the collection, evoked too in the crease-effect fabrics which appeared to have emerged from a suitcase or travel bag). Leather was also ultra-lightweight and was treated to be washable – a reminder of Zegna’s ongoing fabric innovations, which interplay with traditional techniques.

Though it was Sartori’s use of colour that proved particularly seductive: evocatively named hues of burro di montagna, olio, cognac and barolo were designed to appear as if scorched by the Dubai sun. This same mood was evoked in the fabrics, which were treated to look washed out or faded, ‘like the heat of Dubai had left a permanent mark’.

‘There is an immediacy and a liveliness to the earthy allure of this collection that belies the layered thought process behind it,’ says Sartori. ‘While researching, we came across an image that felt illuminating, and that perfectly summed up my intentions. It depicts a chair, upon which items of clothing are piled up after being taken off, probably, ready to be picked up the day after. The casualness suggests a life lived intensely, which is what we are after.’

The decision to show in Dubai spoke to the importance of the market for Zegna, which has an outpost in the Dubai Mall, a landmark that attracts over 100 million visitors each year. Other outposts in the Emirates include stores in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with plans to open five more in the next three years. ‘The potential is still enormous,’ Gildo Zegna, chairman and chief executive officer of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group, told WWD, praising the city’s entrepreneurial spirit. ‘It is increasingly becoming a point of reference for Asia outside China.’

As such, the latest iteration of ‘Villa Zegna’ will remain at the Dubai Opera for the next week, allowing visitors – largely the house’s highest-spending clients in the region – the opportunity to explore the show set, alongside various other spaces which trace a line from Ermenegildo Zegna to the present day. And, after stepping through the founder’s own wardrobe, avid shoppers will be able to pre-order S/S 2026 looks straight off the runway and into their own.

Villa Zegna will run at the Dubai Opera until June 16 2025.

zegna.com