Alessandro Sartori presented his Fall/Winter 2021 collection for Ermenegildo Zegna during Milan Fashion Week.

“We all are experiencing a new reality concerned with new needs, which lead us to previously unseen lifestyles and attitudes. It is precisely at a time like this, when everything is under discussion, that we, at Zegna, have decided to (Re)set. We have looked at our roots to (Re)interpret our style codes and (Re)tailor the modern man. Outdoor and indoor come together and a new way of dressing takes hold, where comfort and style blend to create a new aesthetic”, says Alessandro Sartori.

The collection follows a seamless pace. A new and varied generation of jersey fabrics take center stage at Zegna. Shapes are fluid, comfortable, and adaptable. In sync with lifestyles that blend indoors and outdoors, the tropes of stay-at-home dressing – the shawl collars and belted generosity of a robe de chambre, the ease of track pants, and the coziness of hand-cut jersey slippers – reshape the very idea of formality. Archetypal items get new functions in a switch of forms, weights, and materials. Chore coats in cashmere, wrapped as a robe, take up the role of habitual sport codes, hybrid suits are in double cashmere, unreleased groups of knitwear replace shirts, new sweaters made of felted cashmere and knit, or knitted out of leather, are meant as outerwear; trousers and jackets are cut in shearling. Even briefcases, the very epitome of business, are deconstructed.

Ease and personality are the bywords: the reimagined suit, either loose or with a blazer tailored close to the body, is not a uniform, but a way of being oneself. It can be as supple as being cut entirely in knitted cashmere or jacquard and is worn with loose turtlenecks or zip-up tops in place of a shirt. Volumes are relaxed for the dropped shouldered jackets and the shirt jackets matched with full trousers, for the belted coats, the blousons, and the double front jumpers. 

The collection was presented in the form of a film. Fluid camera movements and uncontrived passages from inside to outside offer a visual narrative full of sudden surprises and ruptures from one situation to the other. Glimpses of a metropolis and the insides of an ideal building flow smoothly as models cross rooms, paths and ambiances until THE (RE)SET finally unveils its meta meaning, the set being in fact the theatrical place where the filming happens.