Credit: Courtesy of ZEGNA

New ways of making things create new perspectives, and new perspectives determine other ways to be into the world. The new ways ZEGNA tirelessly pursues originate in the materiality of fashion-making: a path that starts from the fibers and the fabrics, continues in the shapes, and finally reaches a multiple ending in the uses such shapes entice. Oasi Zegna is the place and the state of mind where it all happens.

As the revolving center and the ever-evolving mindset that collects and activates everything ZEGNA stands for, Oasi  Zegna represents a quest for excellence and beauty with a responsible commitment that is not static. It travels, in  fact: across space and craft, near and far. The Fashion Show today introduces an oasis in Milan, among 192 bales of  raw linen that occupy a square in the centre of Milano, on a backdrop of historic buildings, in broad daylight. The  bales have been transported from Normandy, where flax is grown with its blue flowers that bloom for just a brief  moment in early summer and will re-enter the production chain once the show is over, to be crafted in Italy into  Oasi Lino. The dream of nature in a metropolitan context, and the circular values it conveys, becomes tangible.  ZEGNA commits to certifying Oasi Lino fibres as 100% traceable by 2024.

Linen, in the mind of Artistic Director Alessandro Sartori, is as a vector of nimbleness: the perfect complement for  the sartorial reset he is pursuing in writing a new paradigm that is fluid, apt for different bodies, crossing different  demographics. ‘At ZEGNA we keep rethinking what an efficient wardrobe should be like today, further delving into  the idea of creating a system of elements — tops, bottoms, underpinnings and accessories — that can be combined  and self-styled however one prefers. It’s the idea of the uniform that prompts non uniformity. The suit as matching  jacket and trousers no longer applies. Today, everything goes with everything, and this frees the customer, who can  play with shapes and hues. Lines are deceptively simple: we hide functional elements in the construction, bringing  texture to the fore. The overall fluidity makes it all look quiet and luxurious, but the tension in the details, the richness  of colors and the freedom infinite combinations suggest is not quiet at all’ says Sartori.

A sense of soft precision defines the collection. Volumes are fluid, categories are liquid: deconstructed jackets with low or standing collars; airy duster coats; round-neck tops that replace jackets; vests that double as tank tops; bombers that flow into shirts. Irregular lines run on the exterior of items as well as inside, in the linings, showing up on turn ups, marking the tension of uniform/non-uniform. Textured knitwear further accentuates the sense of ease and suppleness. The palette of ZEGNA, worked in scales of similar tones and irregular monochromes, is an amalgamation of neutral hues – calcare, juta, mastice, aral  gray, chilled notes of linfa, agave, lichene and petra, warm tones of foliage and ferruggine, and accents of flamingo  and Namibia orange.  

L’OASI DI LINO is a state of mind: one of lightness in living and behaving.