Milan Fashion Week: Ermenegildo Zegna Gives Darkness The Green Light

There's light at the end of the ribbon tunnel. Or, at least, a parade of pared back modern tailoring that has come to define Alessandro Sartori's turn at Ermenegildo Zegna. For against the backdrop of a Milanese warehouse, the clothes on show for A/W '20 sprang forth, reflecting the industrial surrounding. Suits in moody grey; functional black bomber jackets; the mechanics of a side-fastened, button-less suit, and a cargo-carrying cross-body bag.

It'd be easy to confuse the showspace for a mayday celebration in 1984's Airstrip One. But, for all the nods to slick, hi-spec, dystopian manufacturing, Zegna is taking great pains to be a little kinder to the planet. Where the Italian house once hit weaving wastage rates of up to 50 per cent, Sartori told Vogue that the same share of his collection is now made of recycled fabrics. What's more, he stated that zero waste isn't impossible.

Ecologically conscious design also involved socially conscious manufacturing. Like Bethany Williams at London Fashion Week: Men's, fabrics like the zig-zag cashmere on display were woven by participants of the San Patrignano recovery community, which sees young people undergo drug rehabilitation through skills-based learning and mentorship.

This gives Zegna's intellectual, informed design further meaning. There's give-back in the relaxed tailoring, and the fine textures, and the refined statement of geometric fabrics, and everything else, really, that Sartori offered. As the show bowed out, the light at the runway's entrance appeared to be of a traditional yellow to onlookers. But, flanked by the ribbons that were actually made from the surplus fabrics of collections past, the colour is an increasingly brighter shade of green.

Scroll on for the best looks of the show.