Zegna Announces Multi-Year Partnership With Art Basel

With its new multi-year partnership with Art Basel, Zegna inaugurates a new season of its cultural commitment, reaffirming the role of art as an integral part of its identity and entrepreneurial vision. The Italian brand, synonymous with sartorial elegance and textile innovation, chooses to narrate through the language of art the values of sustainability, social responsibility and connection with the territory that have distinguished it for over a century.

Far from ephemeral aesthetic strategies or sponsored projects for promotional purposes, Zegna's approach to art is structural. Deep roots tie it to the Alpine landscape of the Biella area, where already in the 1920s the founder Ermenegildo Zegna commissioned public works from artists Ettore Oliviero Pistoletto and Otto Maraini , integrating them into the production context of the wool mill and thus giving shape to an "open-air museum," today known as Oasi Zegna.

That vision of a factory that coexists with beauty has spanned generations and expanded, without ever losing coherence. Daniel Buren, Dan Graham, Roman Signer are just some of the artists who over time have contributed to building this silent dialogue between art and industry. The presence of works by William Kentridge, Ettore Spalletti and Mimmo Jodice in Zegna flagship stores around the world is a direct evolution: not decoration, but a tangible manifestation of a cultural ethos.

The collaboration with Art Basel—which will see Zegna involved in the four fairs in Basel, Miami Beach, Paris and Hong Kong—represents a natural extension of this path. It is not just about visibility, but about the desire to create spaces for reflection capable of generating shared value. At the heart of this commitment is Visible, the project promoted by Fondazione Zegna and Cittadellarte—Fondazione Pistoletto, which supports socially engaged artistic practices through an innovative scholarship program.

As Vincenzo De Bellis, Director Fairs and Exhibition Platforms at Art Basel and new member of the Visible Steering Committee, stated, this is an initiative that "supports artists who use their art to address today's most pressing challenges and build more resilient futures." A statement that resonates with the brand's philosophy: at Zegna, as CEO Gildo Zegna recalls, art is "a means of change" and not a simple ornament.

In the current luxury fashion landscape, where the boundaries between creative disciplines are becoming increasingly fluid, Zegna stands out for its coherence and design depth. It is not the first time that the brand has moved into the field of art—just think of the wool textile trophies designed by Kiki Smith and Not Vital - but this alliance with Art Basel opens up new possibilities for storytelling and dissemination.

An opportunity also to highlight figures such as Michelangelo Pistoletto, whose nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize will be celebrated during Art Basel in June, in an evening that will also announce the beneficiaries of the “Visible” bag 2025. An award not only to an artist, but to an idea: that of an art capable of transforming reality and building authentic relationships between aesthetics, ethics and entrepreneurship. Zegna does not brand art, it cultivates it. And today more than ever it chooses to make it visible, because the future of luxury also passes through culture.