Ermenegildo Zegna S/S 2019 Milan Fashion Week Men’s

Mood board: Men’s ready-to-wear has been infiltrated by the sorts of well-cut sweatshirts, roomy tailored cargo trousers and logo-laden accessories that were once the hallmarks of outsider/skateboarder cool. The result is a new standard. From wide, longer length shorts to small zipped accessories worn across the chest, a certain West-coast nonchalance has become the blueprint for much of what is presented during the seasonal shows.

Designers working with luxury fabrics and fine tailoring have taken note. For spring, artistic director Alessandro Sartori continued to interpret this look within the artisanal vocabulary of Zegna. Entitled ‘Weightlessness’, the collection married the look of sports and performance wear, together with the fabrications of couture tailoring.

Scene setting: The show was staged on a narrow catwalk, stretched across the surrounding lake at publisher Mondadori’s extraordinary offices, designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer in 1975. Located close to Linate Airport, the monumental building mirrors the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Niemeyer completed five years earlier in Brasília. Both are set on vast stretches of calm, flat water making them look as if they are suspended in mid-air. 

Best in show: The look had an Eighties sensibility. Silhouettes were wide and sportif – boxy shirt jackets, dégradé check tracksuits and tailored high-waisted double-pleat trousers had roomier fits. Guests sported the brand’s high top Tiziano sneakers in leather, stamped with the XXX logo, and the models wore calfskin and mesh styles available to buy direct from the catwalk.

Trackpants can be zipped off at the knee to become shorts; long parkas borrowed their lightness from summer shirting. ‘Creation for me always stems from a technical challenge. I am presenting shapes that are bold and voluminous, yet very light, in layers of meshes, wools, silks,’ Sartori said. Standout were the pieces shown in a textured Tussah silk produced by Lanificio Zegna using yarns foraged from the wild. Techno couture indeed.