James Blake Turned ZEGNA's Milan Show Into a Spectacle (EXCLUSIVE)
ZEGNA’s presentation on the final day of Milan Fashion Week FW24 was as much of a lesson as it was a spectacle.
The show, which was titled “In the Oasi of Cashmere”, in parts felt like a seminar in how to perfect the art of understated opulence, with splendor fabrics (namely cashmere) at the heart of a collection designed to be layered and combined in a plethora of ways.
Secondly, and perhaps most pertinently, ZEGNA’s presentation was also a performance, one expertly soundtracked by British artist and producer James Blake.
Blake, who worked alongside ZEGNA’s Artistic Director Alessandro Sartori to shape the show’s music, created a symbiotic flow with the motifs and thoughts of the collection omnipresent throughout, which when melded together culminated in a runway more befitting of broadway.
“Alessandro [Sartori] fell in love with my song Friends That Break Your Heart, so we started from there,” Blake explained to Highsnobiety following the show.
“It [the soundtrack] ended up needing a remixed version of the same sort of themes. There’s this bittersweet feeling to the song that I think, paired with the falling cashmere, paints a picture. As soon as we paired the two together, we knew it was the right thing to do.”
Blake is a self-confessed ZEGNA obsessive. Not only was he draped head-to-toe in the Italian label’s finest on his recent global tour, but when visiting the brand’s space in the days leading up to the show, Blake was taken back by the undeniable quality of the label's garments.
“I came and saw them [the clothes] in person a couple of days before the show,” recalled Blake.
“They [the team] virtually had to ask me to leave in the end because I was walking around for so long wanting to touch everything from the collection and feel all the fabrics. Whatever ZEGNA is doing — the shit feels insane!”
“Fashion is a spectrum of different tastes,” he continued. “One thing I like about ZEGNA in particular, though, is that the clothes are always extremely unpretentious. Everything it makes feels great and looks great too.”
Since its inception, ZENGA’s Oasi lab has served as a sort of fashion playground: a place in which the brand can tirelessly explore new fabrications, develop new forms, devise forward-looking clothing solutions suited for the now. For FW24, it was all about cashmere.
From the mountain of cashmere in the center of the room to the multi melange shetland-cashmere, pure cashmere beaver, cashmere-backed plongè leather, and pure cashmere terry, the fabric has proven to be a good enough guinea pig for the season.
The clothes and fabrics, though, proved to be just one part of a mightily impressive and multifaceted ZEGNA show that, like only a few brands have managed to do, blurred the lines between entertainment and fashion.
Point is, ZEGNA’s FW24 presentation wasn’t just another presentation on another day of Milan Fashion Week, but instead it felt more like a show-stopping performance dress as well as it was soundtracked. And, most importantly, it was a bloody good one, too.
