The Cloth That Built a House

A Zegna fabric suit is the one garment my clients most often ask for by name. They have felt the wool in a boutique somewhere, or heard the house's name from a friend, and they come to ATELIER 23 wanting a suit in Zegna fabric made to their own measurements. That is what we do. We are a made-to-measure atelier in Lisbon, and the house of Zegna has been sending its cloth to tailors since 1938. When our tailor cuts a jacket from Zegna wool, he is continuing something the house began almost ninety years ago.

Zegna history and who runs the house today

Zegna — or ZEGNA, as the brand has been called since 2021 — is an Italian fashion house that began as a wool mill and grew into one of the best-known names in menswear. The family has been in the business for four generations, and it still oversees the textile side that makes the cloth. For a house that began with a single wool mill in a small town, that is a rare thing.

Today the founder's grandson Gildo Zegna is Group Executive Chairman, overseeing the textile division. Two members of the fourth generation, Edoardo and Angelo Zegna, are co-CEOs of the ZEGNA brand. The Group CEO is Gianluca Tagliabue. The titles shift and the structure grows, but the family is still at the loom.

The group has expanded well beyond cloth. In 2018 it bought 85 per cent of Thom Browne. In December 2021 the brand was renamed ZEGNA and the group listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2023 it bought the TOM FORD fashion business. These are large moves for a company that started by weaving wool in the hills above Trivero. The cloth, though, is where the house began, and it is still where the house begins for us.

Where Zegna fabric was born in a Trivero wool mill

Ermenegildo Zegna was born in 1892 in Trivero, a small town in the hills of northern Italy, into an old family of weavers. In 1910, at eighteen, he founded a wool mill there — Il Lanificio. Legally, the company was formed by Ermenegildo, his brothers Edoardo and Mario, and a business associate. The mill sits at about 800 metres above sea level.

A 1937 advertisement announced the Zegna wool mill as supplier to the Prince of Piedmont — the heir to the Italian throne. The mill was already known for the quality of its wool. But the moment that matters for us, and for anyone who has a suit made from Zegna cloth, came a year later.

In the spring of 1938 Ermenegildo Zegna opened his first branch in New York to sell Italian fabrics to foreign tailors. The house began as cloth for tailors. A tailor in New York would receive Zegna wool, cut it, and make suits to the measurements of the men who walked into his shop. That is exactly what we do today in Lisbon — with cloth from the same house, cut and sewn by a tailor, the way cloth was sold before ready-made suits existed.

The Ermenegildo Zegna story and half a million trees

While the wool mill grew, Ermenegildo Zegna was also planting trees. In 1938 he began building the Panoramica Zegna, a road 26 kilometres long through the hills around Trivero. Since the 1930s the house has planted more than 500,000 trees. In 1993 the Oasi Zegna was created, a nature reserve of about 100 square kilometres.

I mention this because it tells you something about how the house thinks. Zegna is a company that plants forests around its wool mill. The wool we cut in our atelier comes from a house that has spent nearly a century tending the land it stands on. That is a fact of the company's history, and it has been the case since before the Second World War.

Where Zegna fabric is made today

The Zegna cloth is still made in Trivero. In the 1970s more than a thousand people worked there; in 2022 the number was about 450. The group runs the entire production cycle itself, from raw material to finishing — meaning the wool arrives as fibre and leaves as finished cloth, and every step in between happens under the group's control.

The house owns a merino farm in Australia called ACHILLFARM — 2,500 hectares with about 10,000 sheep. The group has also gathered Italian textile companies around it: weaving, spinning, knitting. Some were bought together with Prada. The group has built what it calls a filiera — an integrated chain of production that connects the sheep farm in Australia to the finishing rooms in Trivero. The cloth travels a long way before it reaches the cutting table in our atelier.

What a micron means for a Zegna fabric suit

A micron is the thickness of a single wool fibre. A human hair is several times thicker. The lower the micron count, the finer the wool, and the softer the cloth made from it. When a client asks me what makes one Zegna fabric suit different from another, the answer often comes down to microns.

In 1963 the founder established wool trophies for Australian growers. Today the house's awards include the Vellus Aureum trophy for the finest fleece — the wool shorn from a single sheep. In 2023 the world record was set: a fleece of 9.4 microns, something close to a wonder of breeding.

In 1964 the Australian Wool Board named the Zegna wool mill the largest consumer of Australian superfine wool — the finest grade of wool produced in Australia. The house has spent decades finding and buying the best fleeces in the world, and then turning them into cloth that a tailor can cut.

What is inside the Zegna fabric catalogue

The Zegna fabric catalogue — the Zegna fabric books that tailors use — is what I show clients first. It is a set of large books, each containing swatches of cloth. You touch the swatches, hold them to the light, and choose the cloth for your suit.

There is 15milmil15, a superfine wool of 15.2 microns — so fine it feels almost weightless in the hand. There is Trofeo, a superfine Australian merino — a breed of sheep known for soft, fine wool — with long fibres and a natural spring that helps the cloth return to shape after being worn. There is Trofeo 600, which is 85 per cent wool and 15 per cent silk. For summer there are Cool Effect cloths that reflect more of the sun's rays, keeping the suit cooler in direct light. There is Oasi Cashmere, traceable from Mongolia — meaning the house can follow the fibre along its whole journey to the cloth.

Beside 15milmil15 sits 14milmil14, jacket cloths the house captions in its book as "Il piacere del lusso", the pleasure of luxury. Electa is one of the house's historic cloths: the book calls it a cornerstone among Ermenegildo Zegna's worsted fabrics, worsted meaning smooth cloth woven from long, combed fibres. Today's version, Electa Re-defined, is 100% superfine wool. Traveller the house describes as formal, sophisticated and reliable: a fabric that adapts to your day.

Our atelier has all of the house's current collections, including the most precious lines and the seasonal previews. I open the books on the table and let my clients choose. The collection names matter less than the feel of the wool between your fingers.

Since 2024 the face of the house has been Mads Mikkelsen. You may have seen him in the campaigns. He wears the cloth well, and the cloth is the same whether it is on him or on you.

A Zegna fabric suit from the boutique and a made-to-measure suit are different things

I want to be honest about this, because my clients ask. A suit you buy in a Zegna boutique is made by the house, to the house's sizing, in the house's style. It is an Ermenegildo Zegna suit. The cloth is Zegna, the cut is Zegna, the label is Zegna. The house began making its own suits in 1968, and the boutique suit is the result of that decision.

A suit we make at ATELIER 23 is a different thing. We buy Zegna cloth and cut it to your measurements, in our own workshop in Portugal, in the Serra da Estrela mountains. The cloth is Zegna. The cut is ours. The label is ours. You get a suit in Zegna fabric, made to your body, in the style and fit that you and I agree on together.

The house began in 1938 by sending cloth to tailors. A tailor cutting Zegna cloth is continuing what the house started with. The boutique suit and the made-to-measure suit are both fine garments, and they are different things. We make the second one, and we make it from the cloth the house has been sending to tailors for nearly ninety years.

The house began in 1938 by sending cloth to tailors.Andrey Kostenko

What a Zegna fabric suit costs and how the process works

At the atelier the Zegna fabric price depends on the cloth you choose. I give the exact price at the first meeting, after we have looked at the cloth books and you have chosen the fabric you want.

ATELIER 23 was founded in 2017. We have ateliers in Lisbon and Moscow. The suits are made to the client's measurements in our own workshop in Portugal, in Serra da Estrela. The process takes four to six weeks, from the first measurement to the finished suit. I will explain every step as we go, and you will never be asked to understand a trade term I have not already put into plain words.

Where to have a made-to-measure suit in Lisbon

If you are in Lisbon, come and see us. We are on Avenida da Liberdade, at number 110, office 209. I will show you the Zegna fabric books, including the seasonal previews. I will introduce you to the tailor. If you wish, we will take your measurements. The meeting takes about an hour, and it commits you to nothing.

You will leave knowing what your suit could be made from, what it will cost, and how long it will take. If you decide to go ahead, we begin. If you decide to think about it, the cloth will still be on the table when you come back.

A Zegna fabric suit begins with wool, and with a tailor. We have the wool and we have the tailor. The rest is up to you.

Before you order