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Walk into Villa Zegna, and you might be forgiven for thinking you were anywhere but New York City. Housed within the Upper East Side’s Salon 94 gallery, this new experiential retail space transports visitors to Oasi Zegna, the former home of founder Ermenegildo Zegna in the Italian Alps that today comprises the brand’s wool mill and a forest territory originally planted by Ermenegildo himself.
Spend some more time in the space, though, and the New York elements begin to trickle through. It is, after all, an homage to the founder’s first trip to the city, back in 1938. In the entryway, shelves are lined with Ermenegildo’s original luggage from his New York voyage. And in the banquet hall, both the dishes and menu font have been borrowed from the founder’s ’38 gala dinner with esteemed American tailors. Other elements take you somewhere a little more European. The elevator is transformed into his office back in Italy, his original notebooks on the table. An earthy scent fills the second floor, thanks to a room filled with moss (from the actual Oasi Zegna forest). The space tells the story of the brand’s New York chapter, framed within its Italian home base.
The experience is designed to offer guests an immersion into the Zegna universe. “We’re here to tell a chapter of the story that takes place in New York,” says chief marketing, digital and sustainability officer Edoardo Zegna, one of CEO Gildo Zegna’s two sons. “My goal is to increase the desirability of this brand. And my one avenue is telling stories.”
Another floor up, Zegna clients can splurge. Through a rack of clothing — including a jacket from the original collection — guests step into a showroom of sorts. Everything is for sale, and everything is exclusive to Villa Zegna and able to be tailored to a client’s measurements.
It’s the second iteration of Villa Zegna, which debuted in Shanghai in May with a focus on the brand’s linen. The global concept travels to different markets, sharing different chapters of the brand’s history.
Only a select few will be able to experience this chapter in person. Zegna describes Villa Zegna as a “small private club”. The invite-only space, open exclusively for one week, will play host to top clients, press, celebrities and friends of the brand. Mornings will be filled with talks over breakfast, including a conversation between Stan Smith and his father. (Zegna can’t confirm most guests, but hints at a conversation between a “prominent American family son” and his brother Angelo, and a ‘Made in Italy’ talk from a Columbia professor.) Client lunches and dinners will fill the rest of the day, in between appointments and fittings.
With Villa Zegna, the brand is playing into the premiumisation trend of perks for top customers, timed to New York Fashion Week. With prices higher than ever, luxury brands need to do more to win over consumers. In Zegna’s view, access plays a part, but storytelling seals the deal: he wants consumers to buy into the brand world as much as a shoe or a jacket. “It’s about giving our customers an opportunity to go one step further,” Zegna says. “There are these layers of experience that you add as a storyteller.”
Story first, product second
With Villa Zegna, his goal is to immerse clients and guests in the Zegna universe — specifically, the brand founder’s New York moment. It’s why the clothes are the last stop on the journey through the building.
Product quality is a given, Zegna says. He points to the line on the back of the new ‘Il Conte’ jacket (translating to ‘the count’, in a tribute to the founder), a reference to the road Ermenegildo built across the mountain back home in Oasi. The shoes he’s wearing, out next spring, have the same line. “The products are the Lego pieces that build the brand; it’s about injecting stories into the collection,” he says.
This is why Zegna maintains its goal of reaching 90 per cent direct-to-consumer (DTC) in the near term (up from 84 per cent in January). “In the luxury business, the top of the range will move DTC because you want to own the consumer,” Zegna explains. “You want to own that relationship and consumer experience as a whole.” Zegna’s strong suit is that the heritage brand has found its point of differentiation: its Piedmont roots, the founder’s origin story. “If you figure out what makes you different, if you figure out ways to tell the story and increase the visibility of this difference — and you stick to it — that’s how you build a business.”
Nowadays, brands need to go beyond just selling items, Zegna says. “I’m not anymore in the business of products. I’m in the business of experiences, of hospitality.”
Villa Zegna will continue to travel — though Zegna can’t yet confirm where. What we do know is that it’ll always have a “local aspect” that makes the concept region specific, but that this may not be as on the nose as the founder’s 1938 New York expedition.
And in each, Villa Zegna will function as a private club that can’t be bought into. And once you’re in, Zegna says, you’re in.
“My KPI isn’t how much they’ve purchased. It’s how much they’ve bought the story.” This, Zegna says, is what guarantees a life-long Zegna customer. “My goal here is that you’re never going to leave Zegna again.”
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