Something about the tone of Stefano Pilati's voice when he used "sexy tailoring" to describe his latest collection for Ermenegildo Zegna Couture suggested he wasn't quite sure the words belonged together. What he wanted to convey was the essence of a process that applied a feminine lightness and transparency to the sturdy conventions of menswear. "A deconstructed feeling, but constructed," Pilati said in an effort to explain dark, languid coats and jackets that flipped open now and then to reveal a colorful madras lining or a drawstring waist on trousers. If the story was the fabrics—appropriate, given that this is a Zegna collection we're talking about—the way Pilati told it was the trump card, emphasizing the material weightlessness by layering jackets one atop the other: For instance, an ice pink blazer in Zegna's confoundingly light Double Century Cashmere floating over something double-breasted in a super-fine madras.
Staging is important to Pilati. He presented this collection on a stark, blinding white set, the runway elevated so that the audience was at eye level with the footwear—fringed booties or slip-ons. That made you think about the customer that Pilati claims to be targeting: the new breed of businessman in the digital era for whom a suit stands for something other than a regimental uniform for the office. This man's working environment might be unconventional, hence those slip-ons paired with a coat so soft it looked like a silk dressing gown, or a jacket and pants that were compatible without matching (Pilati's Broken Suit idea). It's like he is reclaiming and reconceptualizing clichés—the madras, for example, which played a big part in this lineup. Not preppy, not ethnic, just a different way to use color and pattern.
The idea of reconceptualization raised an additional prospect. In a year that sees the 40th anniversary of the beginnings of the Giorgio Armani revolution in menswear, it's surely significant to see another designer applying himself to some of the precepts that originally marked Armani's work as so radical. It seems that there are a few notions in fashion that never lose their nowness. And Michel Gaubert's soundtrack made it clear that music is the same. He scored the show with a song called "Auntie Aviator" by John and Beverley Martyn. It sounded so completely of the moment that it was a shock to find it was actually released in 1970.
