Inside Zegna’s Long Hot Los Angeles Adventure
Alessandro Sartori showed his Spring Summer ’27 collection on Malibu Pier and it was a lesson in warm weather dressing.
Published on Jun 7, 2026
Alessandro Sartori, the longstanding creative director at Italian menswear brand Zegna, titled his new Spring/Summer ’27 collection “La Villeggiatura”, after the time-honored Italian tradition of spending long, hot summers holidaying in villas.
The clothes were appropriately easy, breezy and beachy. Shown on Malibu Pier in Los Angeles, stripes reminiscent of vintage picnic blankets and deck chairs found their way onto most garments, appearing on fluid trousers and chic popovers alike.
The real success of Sartori’s offering, however, could be found in the tiny tweaks made to classic garments.
Detachable collars on shirts looked louche and bridged the gap between summer formality and ease. Trousers cut so fluidly that they looked wide and close at the same time defied logic. Braided suede bombers and pullovers were unexpected in their materiality.
It’s not easy to make menswear that feels both fresh and comfortingly traditional - wearable, to coin an overused term - but in the past few years Sartori has developed an aesthetic language for Zegna that is entirely unique.
His stand-collar jackets, as ubiquitous on the attendees on the pier—Rami Malek and Mahershala Ali among them—as they were on the models in the show, are not groundbreaking in design. And yet, in Sartori’s hands, by way of their superlative fabrication and generous cut, they feel entirely, unmistakably Zegna.
My favorite look in the collection consisted of a silk-and-linen-mix stand-collar belted jacket, worn over one of the signature modular-collar shirts, with a pair of tonal jacquard shorts and ruche-toed suede lace-up moccasins.
The look was casual - perfect for the low key Los Angeles surroundings - yet unapologetically sartorial. It could also only ever have been designed by Sartori (and, importantly, perfectly styled by his longstanding creative partner Julie Ragolia). To have built such a clear sense of unfettered brand recognition is impressive.
“In this collection, I wanted to express a Zegna take on summer, our vision of leisure dressing as something that’s drenched in a cultivated attitude, in a discerning gaze that’s profoundly Italian,” explains Sartori. “Everything here starts from fabrics, which have texture and pattern, and look endlessly renewed by simply twisting and turning the subtlest elements, even just a thread. Constant evolution is what we strive for.”
The show was celebrated with an after party at Chateau Marmont, where the brand built a pop-up version of Villa Zegna. Models wore jewel-toned clothes from Sartori’s previous collections and danced - Call Me By Your Name style - to Italian pop music, as smart waiters served canapés of focaccia and fried parmesan polenta. La Villeggiatura indeed.
This story originally appeared on Esquire.com/uk.
Teo van den Broeke is the Style Director for Esquire.co.uk