Born in Biella, a mountainous province in northern Italy known for its fine wool, Alessandro Sartori grew up just a few miles from the fabric mill where, half a century earlier, Ermenegildo Zegna — the Italian luxury house of which Sartori is now artistic director — got its start. His father designed mechanical looms, while his mother ran a tailoring shop. “I remember being just 3 or 4 and watching in awe as she altered wedding dresses and winter coats,” he says. “Being surrounded by sketches and patterns and fittings has always felt like my most natural habitat.” As a teenager in the late ’80s, he studied textile engineering and joined Zegna soon after, working first as a product designer and later as the director of the brand’s sporty Z Zegna diffusion line. Following a hiatus at Berluti, he returned to the fourth-generation family-owned company in 2016 in his current role and began deconstructing the rigid, traditional dress codes to which it had long adhered.

“The new generation doesn’t want the same old stiff suit their father wore; they want a totally personalized silhouette,” says the designer, 52. “Nowadays, you mostly see formal suiting at funerals and in court.” Instead, Sartori champions technical rigor — he’s pioneered high-performance materials including crease-free and machine-washable wools — and the concept of an infinitely modular wardrobe. As he sees it, his ultralightweight anoraks, leather-mesh sweatshirts and utilitarian bombers can just as easily be paired with high-waisted double-pleat trousers as with track pants that cleverly unzip into shorts; he also makes topcoats and button-downs with interchangeable collars and detachable French cuffs. “In an era that’s embracing the Silicon Valley hoodie-and-sneaker office look, men’s wear needs to be malleable,” he says, adding, “a heritage brand may as well be declared dead the moment it stops evolving.”