Zegna staged its Spring/Summer 2027 show on Malibu Pier on 5 June 2026, turning a stretch of California coast into the backdrop for a collection built around an Italian summer ritual. Among the 500 guests was Rami Malek, joining Mahershala Ali, Stellan Skarsgård and Gael García Bernal as the house unveiled its latest menswear offering.
The choice of venue did some of the work before the first look even appeared. Malibu Pier, first constructed in 1905, had been lined with striped parasols in a nod to Italian seaside resorts of the 1960s and 1970s, a seaside scene that echoed the idea of villeggiatura — long stays away from home by the countryside or the ocean. The show linked that image to a brand that has long traded on summer ease, and on fabrics that suit it.
Alessandro Sartori, who was appointed creative director of Zegna in 2016, kept the silhouette, in his words, dégagé. That meant just-oversized tailoring in seersucker or sharper stripes, roomier smock-style shirting with deep V-shaped necklines fastened across the chest with metal clasps, and tailored shorts alongside safari-style parkas and knit jackets that recalled the 1960s and 1970s. The language was relaxed, but the construction stayed controlled.
That is where the friction sits: the collection was presented as an ode to an Italian summer ritual, yet it was shown in Malibu, California, far from the Alpine roots of the house. Zegna, founded as a wool mill in Trivero in the Biellese Alps, has become known for summer clothes built largely from Oasi Lino linen, and the setting here pushed that identity into a more theatrical register. The beach backdrop did not soften the message so much as sharpen it.
What comes next is the question left hanging by the runway itself. Zegna has shown the mood for Spring/Summer 2027, but it has not yet said how much of the collection will reach customers, or when. For now, the show’s most concrete detail is the one that mattered most on the day: Rami Malek and the rest of the front row were watching a house turn Malibu Pier into a very Italian kind of summer.
