Ermenegildo Zegna is a powerhouse in Italian luxury menswear. Superb textiles, impeccable tailoring, and inspired management have propelled the privately held 108-year-old firm to the head of its league, making it not only a global force with approximately 7,000 employees and 500 retail outposts in more than 60 countries but one of the best expressions of Made in Italy, primed for the 21^st century. 

Four generations of Zegnas have worked smart and hard to evolve the business. They transformed a humble wool mill business in Trivero, a small village in the foothills of the Italian Alps, about 70 miles northwest of Milano, into a strategically diversified “lifestyle” brand that strikes the right chord between heritage and modernity.

Zegna had been known primarily for its Made-in-Italy, high-end textiles but expanded steadily over the decades: first into suits, then neckties, shirts, knitwear, and other accessories such as eyewear and fragrances. It added leathers and home furnishings to the mix and acquired a women’s luxury fashion label, Agnona.

Zegna’s fabrics and clothing lines are forward-looking, engineered for modern lifestyles, casual or formal: there are washable suits for travelers, made-to-measure classic looks for the office, couture tuxedos for the red carpet, sports clothes that adapt to ambient temperature. Zegna even does sports car luxury upholstery for Maserati and Lancia.

Inspired tone at the top

Zegna’s founder, Ermenegildo Zegna, set the entrepreneurial vision and tone for the company back in 1910; modern-day Zegna hasn’t strayed far. Ermenegildo was just 18 years old when he parlayed his father’s four looms into a business with big aspirations: to disrupt the British stronghold on men’s textiles. British menswear had been the standard-bearer for centuries, and Ermenegildo, the youngest of 10 children, wanted to produce fabrics that would rival the best cloth of British wool makers. He knew his craft and adjusted his techniques to exceed the mark.

A marketeer at heart, Ermenegildo wove his name into the selvages of each bolt of fabric as a personal guarantee of excellence and to build his brand. By the 1930s, his business was flourishing. Tailors were his major clients and he actively sought their business, traveling extensively to peddle his fabrics not only to tailors in Italy, but to Italian tailors who had migrated to the US and elsewhere. He tackled other countries too and began the Zegna tradition of sourcing the finest raw materials from around the world, forging relationships with wool breeders from Mongolia, to South Africa, to Australia. By 1945, Zegna fabrics were sold in over 40 countries.

Modern-day Zegna got a head start in social responsibility and environmental sustainability thanks to Ermenegildo’s generosity and concern for the wellbeing of the people of Trivero. By 1932, Ermenegildo had built a medical center and nursery school.  By 1938, he financed the construction of the Panoramica Zegna, a 26 km scenic route linking Trivero and Bielmonte, an Alpine ski area 1,500 meters above sea level. Bielmonte sits at the heart of Oasi Zegna, the 40-square-mile nature park the Zegnas have maintained and opened to the public since the 1930s, when Ermenegildo carried out a massive reforestation plan on the barren slopes of the surrounding mountains.

Next generations take root
Ermenegildo’s two sons, Angelo and Aldo, took the reins of the company in the 1960s. They had their own bold vision. By 1968, they had expanded the Zegna name into the ready-to-wear market, ahead of slower demand for custom-made suits. The company continued to supply high-quality textiles and grow a healthy couture business but opened suit factories from Biella to Novara, all in the Trivero environs, that effectively industrialized the making of luxury, high-end suits: handmade components were joined with machine-made pieces to create the finished product.

More changes were afoot, including the transformation of the Zegna business into a vertically integrated model to control nearly every aspect of the production process, from the selection and processing of the raw wool through the marketing of the final finished fabric. Zegna would come to refer to its model as “sheep to shop.” Its 60% acquisition of an Australian merino sheep farm in 2014 reinforced the platform.

As the third generation of Zegnas was coming of age in the 1970s, the company began to focus on international expansion of its production plants. The 1980s were a period of international retail expansion, with Zegna opening department store “corners” and monoband retail stores in Milan, Paris, London and other major cities. In 1990, Zegna opened its first US store in New York City. In 1991, it was the first luxury goods company to open a store in China. Today, China is Zegna’s leading market, along with Russia.

When it was time for Angelo and Aldo to cede the reins to the next crop of Zegnas, Angelo’s University of London- and Harvard Business School-educated son, Ermenegildo (he goes by Gildo to distinguish himself from his namesake grandfather), and Paolo, Aldo’s son, held key roles in the firm. Gildo, who had served as an assistant sportwear buyer at Bloomingdales in New York City was putting some of what he learned in the US to work in Italy. Gildo eventually became sole CEO in 2006. Paolo currently serves as Chairman of the Zegna Group. Gildo’s sister, Anna, is President of Fondazione Zegna.

CEO vision

Gildo is said to run Zegna as if it were a public company, replete with a strong Board including outside members, a strict management framework, and clear demarcation of roles and responsibilities. The structure has helped Gildo steer Zegna through periods of significant growth, including extensive expansion in the Middle East, Australia, Brazil, and Africa.

His bent for discipline has been helpful as he and his team have navigated a turbulent fashion landscape, replete with globalization, lower cost alternatives from Asia, gyrating tastes of luxury-goods customers, and uncertainty about the winning marketing formula in a digital world. Notably, Gildo has kept the company independent, side-stepping luxury fashion industry consolidators such as France’s LVMH, owner of legendary Italian Italian brands, including Berluti, Bulgari, and Loro Piana, and France’s Kering, owner of Gucci, Brioni, and Pomellato, among others.

Gildo brought in super-star creative directors to help guide the brand, first Stefano Pilati in 2012 and then in 2016, Pilati’s replacement, Alessandro Sartori, born in Biello, a stone’s throw from Trivero, who started his career at Zegna fresh out of design school, left, came back to Zegna to run its casual Z Zegna label, then went to LVHM’s Berluti, and then returned to Zegna as artistic director overseeing all brands and creative functions. Sartori’s successful 2017 collections helped reverse a 2016 decline in revenues. By year-end 2017, revenues were up 2.3% to 1.2 billion euros.

The fourth generation of Zegnas is now percolating at the company. Gildo’s son, Edoardo, a Georgetown University grad, is a recent addition. He joined Zegna in London in 2014 as head of the brand’s omnichannel after five years in retail, including as director of product at San Francisco-headquartered online clothing retailer, Everlane.

This quote from Gildo Zegna is emblazoned on the company website: "A great family makes a great company, a great company makes a great family." The Zegnas and their brand have earned the right to cite that mantra.