Alessandro Sartori serves up a spectacular fashion 'moment' for Ermenegildo Zegna's 50th anniversary collection

Alessandro Sartori, the creative director of Ermenegildo Zegna with a name that couldn’t destine him for anything but the world of men’s tailoring, was keeping an eye on the time.

It was important that his Milan show coincide with sunset for the full effect of those pinky orangy hues hitting the monolithic mirrored arches of Oscar Niemeyer's astounding Sixties edifice Mondadori an hour outside the city, and lighting up the glossy mirrored catwalk over the lake. It was, as they say in fashion parlance, a ‘moment’.

Not that the setting detracted from the clothes; Sartori’s mission at Zegna has been to evolve a new language for tailoring, shaking down the tired old suit to give the sleepy fellow a bit of pep and vim. In this sense, he’s keeping his eye on the sartorial times too; we’re in a moment where sportswear is king and traditional tailoring is up for scrutiny.

“It felt right now to create a new expression in how we look at suits, so we experimented with lightness and weightlessness”, said the designer. Unlined jackets came in finely pressed cashmere to create that airiness, leathers were treated to a “waffle” effect with breathable perforations and technical silks.

Sartori has the best fabric technicians in Italy at his disposal, and he knows how to use them. One particularly striking note were the gabardine trousers, cut without a side seam and seemingly floating free form.

The collection was sportier that it has been in previous seasons, a response to the casualness in today’s men’s fashion climate. “We need function in our clothes in how we live now,” said Sartori. “It’s about a fresh attitude and a volume and freshness in our clothes. Tailoring can have a new life if  we keep pushing it with new ideas.”

To that end, Sartori also debuted what he called the “new three-piece suit”; a pair of trousers and a single breasted jacket, with a matching blouson should the (monied) Zegna customer chose. The colours - primrose, sepia, blush, fawn, baby blue and a series of plum, claret and cerise - were rich and nuanced, highlighted all the more effectively against the soft evening light.

The venue was a very deliberate choice; Zegna’s ready-to-wear collection began in 1968, the same year the building work began.

Sartori said that it was the climate in Milan - a hotbed of design, architecture and fashion - that excited him, with Italianate prints of Renaissance objects on fluid coats, a nod to the original designer of its ready to wear, Emilio Pucci.

While it’s the 50th anniversary of the ready-to-wear line, this was no historical retrospective, but a dynamic proposal of how men should curate their wardrobes in 2018, based on how fast a pace they live, and Sartori’s best collection to date since he took the reigns in 2016. And entirely of the time.