Zegna

In 1910 Ermenegildo Zegna, then 18 and the youngest of ten children of a Trivero watchmaker who had opened a textile factory, founded the Zegna & Giardino wool mill in Trivero in the Biellese Alps with two of his brothers and a fourth partner, Costanzo Giardino Vitri. Buying wool directly from Australia, Mongolia and South Africa and machinery from England, the mill grew to more than 1,000 workers by the late 1930s and began exporting to the United States in 1938.

From the 1930s he also built welfare projects for the Trivero community and the Panoramica Zegna road through the hills, where more than 500,000 conifers were planted; the area became the Oasi Zegna nature reserve in 1993. In 1942 his sons Aldo and Angelo joined the renamed Ermenegildo Zegna and Sons.

The brothers took over in the mid-1960s and moved into ready-made suits, opening factories in Novara in 1968 and in Spain, Greece and Switzerland. The family set up the Wool Awards in Australia in 1963 and the Mohair Trophy in South Africa in 1970, and the made-to-measure service Su Misura began in 1972. The first company-owned boutique opened in Paris in 1980; in 1991 Zegna became the first luxury label to open in China.

The third generation brought brand extension and vertical integration. Gildo Zegna became chief executive in 1997, with his cousin Paolo as chairman, and the group built the Filiera of Italian textile makers, from Tessitura di Novara to Bonotto and Dondi. Zegna bought 85% of Thom Browne in 2018 and took over the Tom Ford fashion business in April 2023.

In December 2021 it became the first Italian fashion company listed in New York, with the family keeping control, and Gildo Zegna added the role of chairman. The brand shortened its name to ZEGNA that year, with a logo recalling the Panoramica road. Gianluca Tagliabue became group chief executive on 1 January 2026.

Alessandro Sartori, born in Trivero, joined in 1989, led Z Zegna from 2003 and returned from Berluti to become artistic director in 2016. His #UseTheExisting project, begun in 2019, makes collections from pre-existing materials.