Journey into Oasi Zegna

Nature wears the colors of the spirit. Moss, bark, slate, copper, mist, ochre. Oasi Cashmere, Zegna’s new cashmere line, takes from the palette of the brand’s very own natural territory, Oasi Zegna, a 100-square-kilometer area forest that envelops the Ermenegildo Zegna’s home of Trivero, where the brand was founded in 1910.

Since its inception, Oasi Zegna natural territory has served as an emblem for the brand’s ethics and commitment to natural beauty and sustainability. And it is to Oasi Zegna the brand returns for its Oasi Cashmere collection, formed on the assumption that the very best garments can only come from the finest natural resources, and that the finest natural resources need to be cared for.

The heart of Oasi Zegna is nestled deep in the Biellese Alps in Piedmont, Northern Italy. The natural territory can be traced back to Ermenegildo Zegna’s reforestation undertaking in the 1930s, when he had 500,000 conifer trees planted across the mountains that surrounded his wool mill in Trivero. Zegna then built a 44.5-kilometer road called the Panoramic Zegna — now known as the 232 Panoramica Zegna — to link the region's villages to their natural surroundings and offer the public sweeping views of its valleys and mountains. In 1993, the Oasi Zegna officially became a protected natural territory. The size is thirty-times that of Central Park in New York City.

Today, the area is a rare place of intense natural beauty. The conifer trees still stand tall and dignified, down the sloping mountain shoulders and its languid roads. All along the face of the hills, tiny blades of grass sprout around last year’s straw-colored hairs that rise to the knee. One can see the shape of the wind by how it breathes over the grass in waves. During the morning mist, when the clouds descend amongst the hills, one can breathe in the crisp, white air into the lungs. The smell of grass enriches the air with a warm dampness. The rhododendrons and hydrangeas come alive with the seasons, erupting in deep magenta and fuschia. At sunset, when the air is clear and translucent, the sun descends over the mountains, rays of light shining horizontally between the conifer tree trunks—the sun descends, and the shadows rise, casting long, dashing shapes along the vast forest floor. In unceremonial silence, the sky can change from the white of goat’s hair to the blue of oceans, before deepening into a dark and dense violet.