Interview: Boyd Farrow

Ermenegildo Zegna may be the fourth generation of the Zegna family to run the eponymous Italian luxury men’s clothing group, but his business ideas are perfectly tailored to the globally minded marketplace of today

PRESSING THE FLESH at the movie premiere-like opening of his new flagship store in Buenos Aires ­ a city which gives the impression that people dress up even to put the bins out ­ Ermenegildo Zegna personifies the Italian luxury men’s clothing group of which he is chief executive. Although the flashbulbs, bouncing off some of the whitest teeth and tautest skin outside Hollywood, give the impression he is wearing a suit of lights, it is actually an immaculately tailored one in a subtle grey check, worn with a solid tie. The evening before, at La Brigada restaurant, a humid jam-packed shrine to football and caveman- sized meat platters, the trim 52-year-old looked equally cool and comfortable in a navy cashmere jacket and loafers without socks; an Englishman in the same ensemble would look as if he had just returned from a stag party.

At the store’s opening “Gildo”, as he calls himself, to differentiate from the family’s other Ermenegildos of alternating generations, mumbles appropriate niceties about Argentine men being snappy dressers. But he admits that whenever he travels he tries to “spot the Italian”, insisting that his countrymen are better than most at mixing and matching clothes. “It is part of our heritage. It is in our DNA,” he states simply. As are the manufacturing traditions: “For centuries Italian family-orientated textile companies have passed methods from father to son, offering products not found anywhere else.”

Gildo says this appreciation of heritage ­ he is the fourth generation of the Zegna family to run the company and became CEO last December ­ is precisely why the Zegna label is now part of a multinational company. What started as a simple wool mill in the Alpine hills, in the village of Trivero, opened in 1910 by Gildo’s great- grandfather Angelo, a watchmaker, is now distributing its lines in more than 60 countries and generating in excess of 85% of its sales overseas. Zegna Group reported turnover of 779.4m and net profits of 63.3m for 2006, which Gildo suggests is sufficient to fuel its rampant expansion without listing, unlike flotation-minded Prada, say, or Salvatore Ferragamo, Zegna’s partner in the leather-goods market since 2002. Half of Zegna’s revenues comes from clothing, a quarter from the more youthful sportswear collection, and 10% from the sales of fabrics to customers such as Georgio Armani and, more recently, former Gucci golden boy Tom Ford, whose first eponymous store has just opened in Manhattan. Of Angelo Zegna’s 10 children, it was the youngest, also called Ermenegildo, who had the original vision for the company and also the idea to brand it more as an identity, hence giving it his name. His “pioneer spirit” excited Zegna’s globally minded marketers (which is why they have made him the subject of an exhibition inside the Buenos Aires store) because Ermenegildo always realised that to produce top quality textiles meant sourcing the best raw materials from Australia and South Africa. By the end of the 1930s, Zegna employed more than 1,000 people and was exporting to the US, a market which now accounts for around a third of its sales.

Gildo, says his grandfather and namesake, was years ahead of his time in realising that the wellbeing of his workforce was crucial for long- term success. Trivero was bestowed a library, gym, theatre, pool, a medical centre and a crèche. Far- sightedly, Zegna has now expanded its manufacturing centres abroad, albeit under watchful Italian eyes. A cost-saving factory in Barcelona opened in the early 1970s, then one in Stabio, just over Italy’s Swiss border (for the made-to- measure items) and, more recently, factories in Istanbul, for shirts, and Mexico City, for sleeves and trousers. In fact, Zegna now employs more than 6,000 people, of whom half work outside Italy. “We design the clothes in Italy and we have built our own factories and exported our manufacturing skills,” says Gildo. “We control all our operations with Italian managers and instil Italian know-how but the industry itself is global.”

His grandfather’s concern for the environment was also well ahead of its time. Ermenegildo designed and financed the 25km Panoramica Zegna road, which connects Trivero and Andrate and a 100km nature park, the Oasi Zegna. Chiming better with today’s climate of corporate and social responsibility, the long-established Fondazione Zegna is buzzing with various projects, including the environment, culture and medical and scientific research, in an attempt to “perpetuate the values handed down to us”.

Of course, first and foremost, Zegna is a business, and a particularly slickly run one. In the heady dress- to-impress 1980s, Zegna opened its first own-brand stores in Paris and Milan. After a sustained roll-out, it now has 460. At the end of the following decade, the company embarked on a strategy of vertical integration, diversification and brand extension, launching fragrances with both Gucci and YSL, including Intenso eau de toilette, eyewear, with De Rigo Group, and acquiring Lanerie Agnona, a prized producer of upscale women’s clothing.

Gildo, who took over the reins after a business shake-up last year, is excited about further embracing his grandfather’s “pioneer spirit”. While there are more store openings planned for China and Russia, and turnover in Latin America is expected to double by 2010, Gildo also has his eyes on India ­ the company’s first store opens in Mumbai this autumn and the Middle East, where revenues were up 68% last year. Cheekily, a Zegna store is planned in the middle of the Armani hotel complex being built in Dubai. Meanwhile, last year, the company tied up with Perofil to design, produce and distribute a line of underwear, including socks and pyjamas, under the Ermenegildo Zegna brand. Agnona boutiques ­ a more subtle way of launching “Zegna Woman” ­ are also in the pipeline. “The secret to diversification is to stick to what you do the best ­ in our case, it is textiles ­ and doing deals with the people in other fields who are best at what they do, such as Ferragamo and De Rigo,” he says.

“I am very excited about the future. Not only are there more rich people in more countries than ever before, men are starting to have fun shopping. We have to make the shops as beautiful as the clothes,” he declares. Indeed, Zegna is redesigning its flagship stores in Milan and New York, having hired architect Peter Marino. Both reopen this autumn.

But it is not just the architecture of the stores that needs constant attention. “Each generation has to build one more storey of the family business. I have finished half a floor and have to prepare the fifth floor for the next generation,” he beamed at the Buenos Aires opening. His 17-year-old son Angelo, who plans to go to university in the US this autumn, looked on from behind the flashbulbs. On his own later, wearing Levi 501s and collar-length hair, Angelo says he has not yet decided what he wants to study. “Business, maybe,” he mumbles. He has the name; will he have the inclination?