Review of Ermenegildo Zegna Fall 2021 Ad Campaign with Ermenegildo Zegna Artistic Director Alessandro Sartori, Agency Baron & Baron
and Photographer Annemarieke Van Drimmelen
Ermenegildo Zegna looks at comfort and fluidity in a new campaign for Fall 2021.
Pursuing the lockdown-induced idea of putting comfort first, Alessandro Sartori’s work for this collection focuses on fluidity and lightness. The sophisticated tailoring that Zegna is renowned for is certainly present, but seen through a softer lens. Jackets and blazers are unstructured; pants are wide and flowing. Monochrome and materiality comes to the fore.
To me, this was the perfect time to rethink what is possible, to reconsider what really matters and to rebalance style while we are called to answer to changing times. A new aesthetic is needed: fluid, ageless, adaptable, where comfort matches perfectly with style.
– Alessandro Sartori, Ermenegildo Zegna Artistic Director
This idea of fluidity is embodied in campaign photographs that explore graceful contrasts of soft and hard, interior and exterior. The flowing lines of the collection stand out against modern architectural features, or the blue gradient of the sky. The prevailing mood is one of comfort, openness, and quiet intellectualism.
The photographs do a nice job to conjure a sense of mood, but the campaign feels forgettable. There are no conceptual or narrative – or aesthetic, for that matter – elements with which a viewer can really make an emotional connection. Sartori could have taken the opportunity to repurpose the set of the house’s virtual runway presentation from Milan – a cubical, cross-sectioned house occupying a bare stage – for the campaign imagery, as that set offered a lot of interesting visual and conceptual opportunities. But the imagery here doesn’t offer much in the way of visual or intellectual stimulation.
The important questions of the campaign’s title, “What Makes a Man,” doesn’t really show up in the campaign. Sartori obviously has intriguing aesthetic concepts going into his designs; we hope that next time the brand can find a way to show us why they matter.
Ermenegildo Zegna Artistic Director | Alessandro Sartori
Creative Director | Margot Populaire
Art Director | Jeremy Kaye
Agency | Baron & Baron
Photographer | Annemarieke Van Drimmelen
Models | Ingo Sliwinski, Maggie Maurer, Yura Nakano
Stylist | Julie Ragolia
Hair | Massimo Gamba
Casting Director | Julia Asaro