Zegna, Dhruv Kapoor close Milan Fashion Week in style

Milan Fashion Week Men ended on Monday on a colourful, stylish note, showcasing some highly attractive Spring/Summer 2025 collections. Italian luxury menswear label Zegna was one of the stand-out names, bringing the week to a close with an extremely accomplished show set in a reconstituted flax field. Earlier in the day, Indian label Dhruv Kapoor made its mark too, with a collection at the opposite end of the style spectrum, featuring amusing embroidery and bright colours.
 

For its show, Zegna transformed an industrial depot on the outskirts of Milan in a vast, rust-coloured flax field, across which the models strolled nonchalantly. In June 2023, Creative Director Alessandro Sartori presented a summer collection almost exclusively consisting of linen looks, then too showing it in a country setting. This year, Sartori has instead used an array of different materials, including for the first time plenty of leather and exotic skins, as well as a broader range of colours and patterns.
 
Sartori is passionate about fabric research and highly functional solutions, and has raised Zegna’s menswear to an even higher level. He composed his collection like a symphony, all its hues, materials, fabric weights and proportions fitting seamlessly to create a harmonious, effortless whole. Until now, Zegna’s ideal menswear wardrobe revolved around a series of basic monochrome looks. For next summer, the mood has brightened up, with a more striking palette of ochre, teal blue and maroon, as well as colourful printed fabrics with wheat ear motifs. A collection steeped in a rather Italian vein, with its shawl-neck sweaters, pyjama shirts, open-work knitwear, and loose-fitting suits worn with moccasins.

Care was taken in the minutest detail, and everything fell just so: the slightly cropped sport jacket emphasising a sleek silhouette, the positioning of multiple square pockets designed to underscore gestures and attitude, and an amazing selection of impeccably cut trousers with fitted waist and a more fluid volume below, for maximum comfort, with straight-cut legs.

“[Trousers] are often given less prominence in men’s looks. Fitting sessions for our trousers can last up to four hours for each model. It’s the only way to obtain a perfect silhouette. This season in particular, we have designed each item to specifically fit men of different ages and body shapes,” said Sartori, underlining the remarkable work carried out to ensure maximum wearability.
 

 
“There is the work of nearly 500 hands in each item. The secret is using the right fabric for each model. Some materials simply aren’t suited for certain models. For example, I used silk to design a suit with a shirt-jacket rather than a classic jacket, because it works better,” said Sartori.
 
The mood was both relaxed and sensual, each look tailored to its model, whether a young man in a short suede jacket and white jeans, or a more mature gentleman, like Zegna’s new brand ambassador, Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, who closed the show dressed in a black outfit under a maroon leather jacket, carrying two large travel bags. Every look oozed innate elegance, from the cool linen suits to dyed cotton trousers, to a simple pair of shorts matched to a blouse in the same printed pattern, and a suede jacket.
 
The leather items in particular were stunning in their lightness, and seemed to glide over the body. “There’s a special technology behind these garments. They are made solely out of leather, with no inner structure. It’s a major innovation, invisible to the naked eye, that we have developed ourselves. We’re now working on single-material garments, with no fabric blends or adhesives, thinking about their future recycling. With the exception of tailored items, the entire collection has been designed following this single-material concept,” concluded Sartori.

See catwalk

 
The register was quite different at Dhruv Kapoor. In his collection for next summer, the Indian designer has delved into his past, like Luca Magliano and Jonathan Anderson did on Sunday. The idea was to reconnect with the feelings of a former time, when he used to borrow his father’s blazer to look older, comparing them with today’s prevailing cult for youth. A huge cuddly toy, a fabric bunny, Kapoor’s faithful childhood friend, had pride of place at the centre of a set entirely decked out in red, a colour Kapoor detested until recently.
 
The bunny set the tone, heralding a collection that blurred the borders between youth and adulthood. The models, both women and men, had clearly rummaged into their mums and dads’ wardrobes, and into those of their elder siblings too, as suggested by the oversize trousers loose enough to allow a glimpse of the boxer shorts beneath, or the skirts that were clearly one or two sizes too large, their front drooping forward at the waist.
 
Kapoor has given a fresh twist to the more formal items in his collection, introducing new cuts and constructions. A suit jacket morphed into a cropped blouse with a sailor’s top collar, into a bolero top adorned with a bow, and into a gilet-jacket dripping with pearly tassels. Kapoor decorated his elegant pyjama suits with little red bunnies, a clear nod to his childhood nightwear. The bunny motif featured also as embroidered appliqué on some denim items, and in a giant glittering version on a short black dress.
 
Conversely, the game also consisted in transforming youthful looks into something more sophisticated. A light grey fleece joggers-and-top set was reinterpreted with amply cut, straight-leg trousers and a hoodie-jacket with 1980s-style detachable shoulder pads. A denim ensemble was entirely covered with herringbone rows of gleaming miniature rods. Finally, gone were the playful, bright-coloured prints of recent seasons, substituted with more artistic graphic motifs.