Ermenegildo Zegna

Superfine worsteds from Trivero, since 1910

Zegna began in 1910 as a wool mill at Trivero, in the Biella Alps of Piedmont. The name went on to become one of the best known in menswear, but the mill came first, and for our purposes it still comes first. What we buy is the cloth.

Ermenegildo Zegna bought his wool directly from as far afield as Mongolia, Australia and South Africa, and his machinery from England. That care for the fibre stayed with the house, and in 1963 it established the Wool Awards in Australia.

The house keeps every stage under its own eye, from raw fibre to finished cloth, and a tailor sees the result where it counts: consistency. Bolt after bolt arrives with the same soft, even face and behaves the same way under the shears and the iron.

The setting matters too. Since the 1930s the house has planted more than 500,000 trees around the mill, and the nature reserve that grew from that work, Oasi Zegna, now stretches 100 square kilometres from Trivero to the peaks above it.

In the fitting room, Zegna is one of the names clients ask for most, and one of the easiest for us to recommend. The superfine worsteds drape cleanly and press sharply, and they go on doing both long after the first wear. The cloth behaves, which is most of what anyone wants from a suit.