Haute On The Beach

You can wear Zegna to a black tie dinner, board meeting, smart casual lunch and even a romp in the park. So it's simply logical that the Italian label would want to "complete a gentleman's wardrobe in its entirety" - with a new beachwear collection that features boxer shorts in vivid colours, swimming trunks, towels and a jaunty beach bag to carry everything in.

Of course, it's all part of the vision of artistic director Alessandro Sartori, who has wasted no time since his appointment to take the luxury menswear label to a higher level.

True to Ermenegildo Zegna's DNA, the beachwear collection boasts the same attention to quality and craftsmanship. Swimming trunks, for example, are fashioned out of hi-tech Microlite - a polyester-based microfibre that Zegna developed in the 1990s for its now defunct sports line. The yarn is ultra-fine, which makes it one of the lightest technical fabrics on the market.