The Suit Chronicles

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2:57Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Puck's Fashion and Beauty Memo Line Sheet. And today with me on the show is Xenia Artistic Director Alessandro Sartori. We're talking tailoring from Milan to Malibu.

3:14Before we get going, I wanted to remind you that if you like this podcast, you'll definitely love Puck, where I send an email called Line Sheet. If you're a fashion person, you get that reference. It's an original look at what's really going on inside the fashion and beauty industries. Line Sheet is scoopy, analytical, and above all, fun. Along with me, a subscription to Puck gains you access to an unmatched roster of experts reporting on powerful people and companies in entertainment, media, sports, politics, finance, the art world, and much more. If you're interested, listeners of Fashion People get a discount.

3:50Just go to puck.news slash fashion people to join Puck or start a free trial. Happy Friday, everyone. Hope you had a great week. I'm in Los Angeles still. Last night was the Hermes show. Tonight is the Xenia show. I got to see some art, some friends, some fashion. Now it's back to Paris. I'm excited to be here this summer, though. I need to go. There are a bunch of restaurants I haven't been to. I still haven't been to the wilds. I still haven't been to. I don't. Do I need to go? That's a question. I do need to go to Bartabello. And there was a party on Friday night. There's a party tonight that I'm invited to there.

4:29I'm IRSVP'd. I probably won't go because I have to get up at 5 a.m. to go to the airport. On Thursday, inline sheet, our inner circle issue, you have to upgrade to access it as all the really good stuff. I'm worth it. I had some good reporting on what's happening inside caring right now. New CEOs, executive changes, lots, lots of interesting stuff. I would check that out. Malik also had an update on some personnel changes at Fear of God. So you should look into that. But let's get going with Alessandro. And I will see you in Paris next week or maybe London the week after and maybe Milan the week after that.

5:11Alessandro Sartori, welcome to Fashion People. Ciao, Lauren. Ciao a tutti. I'm very happy to be here with you. I'm so happy that you're here. What did you have for breakfast this morning? It's still quite early in Los Angeles. Oh, it was a lovely croissant with cheese and ham and a nice cafe. Italiano, though, because after a few days here in L.A., we were asking to make this very stretto and I'm very happy I had it. Oh, you know, I know a good Italian restaurant in L.A. that's very modern. Maybe I'll send it to you. Not for this trip. Please, please do it. I never know if Italian people want to eat Italian food outside of Italy.

5:49the most yeah the most yes or i can tell you that after a few days abroad wherever you are you want to eat italian you want to get back to that flavor i think mostly because the italian menu are not very complicated the original one you know there is just some oil and a little cooking everything is very fresh and i like that feeling of that smell so after a while we go back to that food yes i feel like i also do that even though i'm american you're cooking at home are you yes we try i mean i'm in paris mostly now and so it's harder to cook at home at night but um but mostly for one is very difficult you know if you cook for two or for three it's easier even to buy the food and to have the right sizes and for one it's more difficult i guess yes Yeah, no, I mean, I do have a husband and child.

6:47So we have to cook for him. So you're cooking for both of them, yeah. Well, I'm not cooking my husband is. He's a good one then. He's a good one. I try. So what do you, tell us what you're doing in Los Angeles. We're preparing this beautiful moment. You know, Zenia decided a few years ago to have his own format. but we were working very much to understand what our customer wanted. The idea is not only to meet them in our stores, but to meet them around the world in specific moments, one-off moments as such. So here in LA, we're bringing our villa format, and I'll tell you about it in a second, and we're doing the fashion show on Friday night.

7:34The fashion show we are hosting here in Maribu actually is a real show that would have happened in the fashion week. It's not the repeat of a show that did exist before. And on top of that, the day after we open Villa, Villa is a format that we do twice a year, more or less, that starts from the principle to repeat what we have up in the Oasis Zegna, in Trivero, in Piemonte. So the name is arriving from the Villa of the founder. so we bring the villa of the founder around the world Oasi Zegni is this incredible natural reserve where he started to do not only his own businesses but also to take care of nature back in 1910 and the villa is inside the park of the Oasi and is connected to the wool mill so there is a beautiful course that goes from the villa to the factory and inside the villa and inside the factory there are all the memories of what he did and what we are doing, of course.

8:39So we're bringing that idea around the world and inside the villa for five days we invite our final customers to buy the fashion show collection that they just saw from Friday on and also an exclusive collection that we do make to measure or bespoke for our client that we don't offer in our stores but we just offer in these limited moment, limited spaces. Do you show in Milan every other season or do you have you not shown? We do so. No, no, we do so. Last show was last January for the Winter 26 collection. And we hosted the show in an outside location. We try to travel the city to let people understand what Milano is, even the secret hidden places.

9:29And we build an installation related to the mood of the season. Do you feel like I'm gonna be in Milan for a part of the men's shows this season just just to do meetings I'm going to like three shows but what I realized was there weren't the schedule is populated but it's not full a lot of brands now don't do shows or they do combine shows during women's how do you feel as as a leader in in that in italy in in the italy italian fashion industry and obviously milan-based business like do you think it's important to show like why do you show a ready-to-wear main collection not during during the calendar So I think under a big transformation, many brands are doing different things as we do a different thing.

10:26But I think the format is under a transformation according to what each brand and the mission of the brand needs. As far as ourselves, we found very important to meet our customers and also to don't consider the show the only moment of a show. And it's not a war game. It's really that we are talking about something that happened with a show at the center, but for a wider and broader moment. But I have to start from the composition of our guests at the show itself to explain what I'm telling you. So if years ago, like just before COVID as an example, most of the people were retailers, wholesalers, of course journalists, and a word of VIP, VIC, Instagrammer.

11:20Today, the composition is much different because we have many wholesalers less. We are distributing 90 % via retail. And so we are replacing those populations with final customers. Just in this villa in Maribu, we are invited more than 120 final customers plus one, so 240. and 40. So over more than 500 people, almost half of them are final customers and their partners or friends. And the reason is that we want to bring the real collection down to the real people that are wearing that collection afterwards. So thinking this perspective to travel the world and meet them where they are. So California, Dubai, Shanghai, we were in New York and so on and so on.

12:16for us is very important. But even when we do the show in Milano, we do the same. January was a fashion show with a villa and the villa took for five days most of our Milano Monte Napoleone store. It was a beautiful moment. And during those moments, you also have a time to meet the customer personally, even for dinner or breakfast or lunch. It's a completely different format. We're really happy to create something which is unique for Xenia. So going back to your question, I think that it's very important that each brand does his own trajectory according to what the mission is. You really live and breathe Xenia.

13:00Very much so. I born in the Aussie, Xenia, actually. I don't know if you know that. But you what? I born in the Aussie, Xenia, myself. So inside, no, no, it's true. It's not a joke. It looks like a joke. So my family was living in Biella, which is at the end of the oase. But up in Trivero, in the valley, in the mountain, actually, until early 2000, there was a nice maternity hospital. So when my mom gave birth, she went there because she knew the doctor and she wanted to go there. So actually I was born in Trinero where the oasis looks like a joke, but it's not. That's amazing. So I briefed Zenia entirely.

13:46So you started your career at Zenia, right? Or very early in your career. How did you get into fashion? Did you always know you wanted to be a designer? Just because my feminine name is Sartori, the answer is yes. No, I'm joking. But actually my brother does a completely different job. So it means the feminine matters. It's in the software, electronic, a completely different world. So my mom was a tailor, actually. And I remember that she had a beautiful atelier in front of our apartment. And I was a kid, four, five, six years old, getting in and out from her atelier into our apartment to her atelier and vice versa.

14:28so I smell and felt the feeling of wearing, of dressing, of creating, of crafting, of making. But what attracted me the most, and since when I was a child, this is a strong attraction I have, is to transform a 2D surface, so a fabric, into a 3D garment that enhances people's aesthetic. And I really like the idea of transforming a 2D into a 3D and create something that's good to make everybody the best version of themselves. And so I started with that and then I did a textile school because in Italy there are a couple of high school like Licea with textile, not only I would say courses, but mostly with the aim of working textile as a long run.

15:27So they are doing experiments with the fabric mills, these schools. They're doing specific projects. We're creating exclusive fabrics. So it was a nice not only touch-up, but immersion in the fashion world, but at the beginning of a chain. And then I did a design school. I worked the most of my career in Zegna. I did six years in Paris, and I'm back since 2016. How did you end up at Zegna? Yeah. Was it because you wanted to do menswear? Was it because it was the job that you found? Like, how did you end up there early on? As a beginning, it was the job I found. I remember I was cycling with my dad.

16:07I was six or seven in front of the wall of the Oasis Zegna, in front of the wall of the villa and the factory. I was dreaming about this magical place, but I didn't know anything about it. And then when I was 23, after the design school, I got a job, but that was the chance I got. So it was totally random, but I'm happy it happened. Did you ever think about designing women's? Because I think your clothes really work for women. Oh, so when you are at school and even in your design dream, you don't do differences. I'm talking about myself. So I think about men and women at the same time. We're not designing for women at Zegna, but we like the idea that the wife, the sister, the daughter, the girlfriend borrow the garments from their husband and partners.

17:05We like that. And so we're showing in the show some women, but with men's clothes, because we think that those same garments in a smaller size are good for women too. But we are designing for men. Yeah, I went to the showroom one season. I don't normally, I guess now that I'm in Europe, I'll come for men's more, but I was in around men's and I went to the showroom and I loved so much of it. I think also your sense of color works across gender or is genderless or gender free or what have you. How do you think about color? oh i love to see myself in positive and negative so black and white versus a world of color i really like colors i i like the colors that are not predictable too like the tobacco the deep green the petrol blue the burgundy the reds and the wine color i really like those colors for men for women too, but for men.

18:13And what is interesting is to try to think that suits are not the classic two-bottom jacket and regular pant, but are compositions of different tops and bottoms in the same color, in the same fabrics. And if you start from this perspective, you can create combination of over shirt and pant, of short coat and pant, of outerwear and pant in the same color, in the same fabric, they create a new sort of suit. And these colors we're talking about are appropriate for these new form of suits. So it's more modular dressing than thinking about an outfit. Yes, and these are correct. And these are giving the perspective to our customer to style themselves in a different way according to the moment and the need, but using the same pieces.

19:07So with two jackets and one pant, you can create two outfits. But with three jackets and the same pant, you create three outfits if you're able to blend the things together. So we are telling them how to style and the styling, let's say, discussions we have with them is very important. And so I go back. That's why it's very important to meet our final customers. It's very important to explain what we're doing and to show to them what Zena stands for.

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21:43Why do you only wear black and white? Is it just in your mind? Does it not feel clear to you to wear color no because i love colors but i love to see myself just with a shape to understand the shapes better interesting okay and i do all the experiment of the new silhouette of myself believe me and many times i wear the garments in the office for hours i go back and i take another garments and i try again and i ask the team to do the same we are engaging all the component of the thing to wear the garments to understand how they work and the same is for different fabrics and colors so i like this idea of trying at the end though i dress mainly mainly black and sometimes white like today are you wearing an aura ring i do yeah how long have you been wearing it for a few weeks like four weeks okay i i like how do you feel but i i need I try different things, different watches.

22:45I don't speak about the brands and so on, but I didn't learn. I like things that are letting me learn something. And from this ring, I learn a lot. So you like data? I do, but mostly I like to understand when I do something different, if a different thing works for myself. So I understood a few things in this week which are worth to sleep more, as an example. Yes. You know, I wore one for a couple of months and I found that I really like tracking my information. What are you stressed? It stressed me out because sometimes I would wake up and say, oh, I felt like I had a really great sleep. And it would say I didn't.

23:33And then the next day I would be like, oh, it was terrible. And then it would say, and it was just. Yeah. And so it's just like I've decided that I, but I understand. It's interesting because it sounds like you like to, like you're talking about the clients and being very close to them so you can see how they wear the clothes and help them, teach them how to use the clothes even better and more fully. Yes. What have you learned? Like when did you start developing relationships with them? I know you've been creative director for what? almost a decade. A decade, yeah. But prior to that, you were at Berluti and prior to that, you were still in the business.

24:17When did you start having these one-to-one relationships with the clients? I consider myself a designer, but also a tailor. So sincere, I have to tell. I think there is something very interesting in dressing people, which is also the relationship you build with your customers. which is not just about selling. It's mostly telling, learning, understanding, teaching, and mostly dressing them, styling them. And I like that moment. So since ever, I have to tell you. But I need to tell you one episode that happened to me during COVID. Since 2020, I would say autumn we started during covid to meet customers via facetime teams or all the platforms and the idea was to try to sell to them in a different way which was not just about buying a product but teaching them on how to wear the product i remember one day i met a customer from US.

25:28I was in our Milano store, it was late afternoon, and I did prepare a rack full of garments. They told me that was a very loyal Zegna customer. He wanted something. I didn't know what he wanted. It was the beginning of winter, so I prepared a rack. I prepared the camera, and I was ready with a guy, a model to use as a model to show in the garments. this guy was in his 50s very gentle he told me oh you know I would love to buy a Zegna coat and he said wow what color you like and he said oh maybe like blue maybe navy blue I said but you're wearing black today and what's your wardrobe made of so the guy said you want to see I said yes I want to see so he turned the camera he left his little studio he entered in a closet and he showed to me his wardrobe which was quite beautiful I have to say and well organized and they say listen but I don't see many blue I see a lot of brown a lot of black a lot of charcoal gray some green for summer why you don't change and we go on a charcoal gray not on a blue coat and instead of buying a classic coat as you wanted I offer you the idea to buy an oversized coat a little longer that goes with everything in a charcoal gray cashmere so at the end it happened he bought it and we still send each other christmas uh wishes and uh and that was a good example of how you can change the perspective of a customer telling him to buy better and uh and he says to me every winter oh i still wear your coat i said thank you it's amazing it's um with with designers i see in america they often call it like a clinic or there are certain designers who want to be connected directly to the customer and certain designers who don't but i feel like in this in this era the only way to sell clothes is to have that direct relationship Yes, yes.

27:42And if we start from the principle to dress people and to let them be the best version of them, this engagement is very important. And today, with the cost of the product, the value of what you buy is even more important. And so we want to give a full value to the product they buy, which is craft, is fabric, so is media, is content, and of course is also the relationship. How have you seen the suit? We were talking earlier about modular dressing and sort of like jackets with pants, not a suit suit. It's interesting to me to see the sort of evolution of the suit. Eight years ago, five years ago, you'd see the suit is dead.

28:32And now the suit is a massive part of fashion. Yes. That being said, we're in Los Angeles right now. You see the way people dress every day. Yes. People are not wearing suits to work. All the agents prior to COVID had to wear a suit. That's not required anymore. but there is a more desire for them. Before it was like you needed them and now you desire them. From your perspective as a designer and a designer of, of however you want to say it, things that are jacket and pants, what do you think the sort of use case, how has it changed and how has it changed the way you approach your collections and the way you design things?

29:18So, two answers for this question. First, I like to think that the suits are part of the wardrobe in a more cohesive way. Before customers, before this transformation, were coming to the store asking, oh, I need a blue suit, or I want a black suit because my old black suit is gone. today we like to think that if they buy a suit is working with everything else so it's not only one product it's part of a full aesthetic so shoes are working socks are working the right shirt or the right polo shirt or whatever but everything does work so they buy less but they buy better and the same is as far as fabrics and content we are selling many make-to-measure suits not only because they want something that has different bottening or a different style but sometime and mostly i have to say in america is also because they want a different fabric they want a very exclusive kind of color they want a specific stripe or a nice texture and that goes mostly with the make-to-measure service that we do.

30:35The second answer is that I don't see only tailoring for suiting and that's one of the things we bring at Xenia. We're using tailoring suits for of course the uniform of the new wardrobe as we said but we're using tailoring fabrics and tailoring craft into sportswear. So the rules to build the shoulders in a certain manner and to use certain fabrics like the cashmere or the linen or the vicuna that we are bringing to tailoring are the same rules we're bringing to sportswear. So you see some of the Zinnia sportswear pieces that they fit like a beautiful suit because even if they are over shirts or different jacket or as we said, new jacket, they are made in the same department with the same rule as the classic suit.

31:26And the same for fabric. Like, it's not rare to find pants or to find outerwear in a beautiful stripe, which is normally the stripe that we did use in the past only for suiting. So I think there is an evolution of this matter, and it's very important. And it's what is bringing new energy to the tailoring. Yeah, it's interesting. It feels like, do you think the world will ever go back to dressing more formally day to day? I think that there is a big revamp on evening. So 10 years ago, few people had a tuxedo. Today, we all want a tuxedo or two or three. That's interesting. So there are more and more moments to wear formal and to be dressed up again.

32:22Where on the other side, though, I don't think we go back to the shirt and tie business as before. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. That's a good point. So many people do have tuxes now. Yes. Women too. Women too. And it's beautiful. How do you approach a fashion show? I feel like I know I'm very intimate with your shows because you do show every other off the calendar, not off the calendar, kind of off the calendar. And also because they get a lot of attention. A lot of other brands tend to, I don't want to use the word copy, but are inspired by your approach to fashion shows, by your designs. I feel like it's one of the men's shows that I'm always like, I have to look at it.