Following suit
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 [...]
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
alt="Ermenegildo Zegna" class="picright">
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.”
alt="Ermenegildo Zegna" class="picright">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.
alt="Ermenegildo Zegna" class="picright">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.”
alt="Ermenegildo Zegna" class="picright">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?
