Zegna is one of Italy’s best-selling fashion exports primarily because the family-owned company has been able to leverage its name beyond suits to include everything from jeans, knitwear, and outerwear to sport shirts, footwear, and small leather goods, among other sportswear essentials. Unfairly criticized for producing a growing percentage of its sportswear outside Italy, the family actually invests heavily in modern technology and manufacturing wherever it operates factories to ensure everything bearing the Zegna names lives up to its stringent quality standards. A pioneer in smart fabric technologies, the brand’s latest innovations include Cool Effect, a next-generation fabric treatment that allows dark-color clothing to refract nearly 80 percent of the sun’s harmful UV rays, and Elements, the first temperature-regulating fabric to integrate nature-like pores that open in warm weather to release perspiration and close when it's cold to lock in warmth.
Inside Information
Ermenegildo Zegna teamed with British-owned Eleksen, makers of technically advanced “smart” fabrics, to create the company’s innovative iJacket, a lightweight windbreaker featuring a built-in touch control panel at the cuff that allows you to interface with your iPod without ever removing it from your inside chest pocket.
