Zegna Triple Stitch™ by MRBAILEY®
The Pinnacle of Human Precision
A closer look at the collaborative relationship between Zegna and MRBAILEY® and a creative bond routed in a shared design philosophy of trust and experimentation.
More than just another collaboration between a luxury fashion house and streetwear designer as a marketing strategy, the Zegna Triple Stitch™ by MRBAILEY® serves as a knowledge exchange between tradition and futurism. What may seem like an unlikely collaboration between the Italian fashion giant and the footwear industry disruptor is, in truth, a productive partnership defined by a mutual fixation on craft and product innovation.
Concerned with designing for tomorrow since 1910, Zegna has championed innovation and quality above all else, tailoring and (re)tailoring classic pieces for the ever-evolving needs of the modern wardrobe. Forward-thinking and conceptual footwear designer MRBAILEY exists on the opposite side of the same coin, often looking to nature to inspire his exaggerated designs, which frequently harness the latest in material developments and design technologies to create boundary-pushing silhouettes. This collaborative experimentation with leather crafted luxury footwear allowed both Zegna and MRBAILEY to explore a different side of their aesthetic viewpoint through the prism of a shared design ethos.
Zegna Artistic Director Alessandro Sartori is unflinching in his dedication to the brand's design ethos, declining to use collaboration as a marketing tool and instead using it as a tool to explore unknown territory in his design vision. This collaboration demonstrates the coming together of the old guard and the new to share design knowledge and resources to present a shared vision of future luxury.
“The moulded X’s act like a ribcage to give stability to the multi-layered nature of the shoe and functions on a metaphorical level as the linchpin that connects the old and the new.”
In keeping with Zegna’s fixation on tomorrow the luxury fashion house invited future-thinking footwear designer MRBAILEY into its factory and tasked him with reinventing it’s infamous Triple Stitch.
Confronted for the first time with a factory in which the brand owns every element of production and is maned by some of the best craftspeople working with the finest materials in the world, MRBAILEY looked to utilise this firepower by creating something that has been so skilfully and precisely handmade that it looks as though only high-tech machinery could have made.
To recontextualise leather-crafted footwear for the luxury market and honour the heritage and craftsmanship of the signature Zegna silhouette, MRBAILEY looked to the elements to inspire his design process, choosing fire to inform the rebirth of the Triple Stitch.
Each of the four colourways corresponds to four states of the wood burning process: Charred Vinuña, Coal Black, Smoke Grey, and Ash White, and the cracked leather upper echoes the Japanese Yakisugi wood burning technique used to weatherproof wood.
To redefine traditionally crafted luxury footwear and create a shoe which is both luxurious and technical, MRBAILEY looked to the accessories team and how they produce leather belts to inform his redesign of a traditional stacked leather sole. Covering the existing Triple Stitch cup sole unit with a single piece that gives the Triple Stitch silhouette a new, chunkier profile more aligned to what we might expect to see from a MRBAILEY shoe, and something completely new compared to the more classically tailored silhouettes associated with Zegna.
Repurposing the traditional shoemaking skillset of Zegna’s in-house craftspeople to create something which blurs the line between handmade and machine-made is explored further in the material development of the leather used to wrap the shoe.
From a distance, and even up close, the reimagined Triple Stitch looks as though it has been swathed in a single vulcanised rubber strip, but in reality, has been wrapped in a succession of treated leather strips seamlessly bonded together to look like a continuous piece of inorganic material, creating a luxury version of vulcanisation.
The cracked leather upper that sits on top of the inner bootie is held together with three moulded X’s that offer a nod to the silhouettes signature Triple X motif which adorns the tongue and heel of the Triple Stitch. For the updated model, the X’s act like a ribcage to give stability to the multi-layered nature of the shoe and functions on a metaphorical level as the linchpin that connects the old and the new.
The level of experimentation afforded to MRBAILEY was only made possible through Zegna owning their means of production and granting him access to an army of skilled craftspeople and designers, presenting a rare opportunity for a conceptual footwear designer to push the boundaries of what is possible within luxury footwear manufacturing. The success of Zegna shoes is born from a strong spirit of collaboration while providing a team of craftspeople with a serene atmosphere to encourage the quality craftsmanship required to produce a beautiful and technically made object. This willingness to collaborate and experiment was extended to and reciprocated in equal measure by MRBAILEY and led to a new silhouette which honours the original legacy of a Zegna icon but presents itself to a new generation of consumers and footwear enthusiasts.
The Zegna Triple Stitch™ MRBAILEY® Sneakers in Black will be exclusively pre launched in-store and online by Kith for the USA, France and Japan on Friday 4th November. A pre-launch will take place for China in December.
The collection will be available in selected international ZEGNA stores, on zegna.com and with selected wholesalers from early January 2023.