Z Zegna

Z Zegna was launched in 2003 as a secondary menswear line within Ermenegildo Zegna, with Alessandro Sartori as Creative Director. It gave the house a younger, more technically inflected tailoring proposition and the first clearly documented line-level creative office in Zegna’s modern fashion history. The line developed an international runway programme, presenting in New York from 2007 before moving into the Milan menswear calendar.

Paul Surridge succeeded Sartori in 2011 and showed his first credited collection in January 2012. Zegna Sport was incorporated into Z Zegna for Spring/Summer 2015; Francesco Muzi and Murray Scallon were subsequently credited with the combined line, while Sartori’s 2016 return placed it within a wider house-wide direction. Z Zegna ended as a separate public line when the One Brand structure consolidated Zegna’s fashion offer in December 2021.

Z Zegna treated tailoring as a mobile system, working with lighter construction, technical textiles, sharper colour and sportswear-derived layers. Sartori’s period set formal precision against youthful proportion; Surridge pushed the line towards leaner, more graphic dressing; the later merger with Zegna Sport made performance materials and functional outerwear more explicit.

Its distinction was institutional as much as visual. Z Zegna allowed the group to separate a faster, more experimental menswear proposition from the mainline while retaining access to the Lanificio’s fabric knowledge and manufacturing network. The 2021 consolidation folded that distinction back into one premium ZEGNA collection.