@TOM FORD FASHION
The Zegna Group’s strategic restructuring, specifically the appointment of Gianluca Tagliabue as Group CEO—the non-family operational professional—is fundamentally designed to accelerate the growth of the Group’s two distinct, yet complementary, luxury brands: Thom Browne and TOM FORD FASHION.
The key critical point is that these two acquired brands are at different stages of their growth cycle and face completely different operational challenges than the core ZEGNA brand. Tagliabue’s promotion, coupled with Gildo Zegna’s new role as Executive Chairman, creates a centralized, disciplined engine that can deploy the unique strengths of the Group (the Filiera and capital) precisely where needed.
I. Thom Browne: Sharpening the Avant-Garde Edge
Thom Browne is the Group’s Avant-Garde Pillar, celebrated for its conceptual runway presentations and highly recognizable, deconstructed aesthetic. However, the brand has recently experienced significant headwinds, particularly in its Wholesale channel, which has seen double-digit declines, offsetting solid growth in the high-margin Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) segment.
The new structure facilitates an immediate and critical course correction:
Operational Discipline via Tagliabue
As the former CFO/COO and now Group CEO, Tagliabue is tasked with driving business performance across all brands and strengthening corporate function integration. For Thom Browne, this means using his financial and operational rigor to aggressively streamline the wholesale distribution. The goal, as stated by the Group, is to achieve high-teens compounded average growth in DTC revenues while focusing on a streamlined wholesale presence. This is a classic “premiumization” maneuver: sacrifice low-margin, less-controlled wholesale volume for high-margin, brand-controlled retail value.
While Tagliabue runs the business engine, Gildo Zegna retains the specific mandate to “safeguard the legacy and integrity” of all three brands. For Thom Browne, whose unique strength is its distinctive design and conceptual audacity, this is crucial. It ensures the corporate efficiency drive does not compromise the radical design identity that makes the brand desirable to its dedicated, hyper-loyal customer base. The Art Car and cult collectible strategy aligns better with Thom Browne’s artistic identity than with ZEGNA’s “quiet luxury.”
The new governance creates a firewall: Tagliabue handles the P&L and channel efficiency, allowing Creative Director Thom Browne to maintain the uncompromising artistic vision. This clarity is essential for a high-concept brand navigating commercial pressure.
@Thom Browne
II. TOM FORD FASHION: Accelerating the Global Flagship Rollout
TOM FORD FASHION (TFF), the Group’s newest acquisition through a long-term license with The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC), is the Modern Glamour Pillar. TFF is in an early-growth, high-investment phase, where the priority is scale and market penetration, especially following its recent transition to the new Creative Director Peter Hawkings.
Capitalizing on Group Synergies
TFF’s greatest advantage is its instant integration into the Zegna Group’s infrastructure, especially its world-class Italian textile platform (Filiera) and manufacturing operations. Tagliabue, with his control over manufacturing operations and corporate integration, will ensure TFF can rapidly ramp up production capacity, quality control, and vertical integration—all crucial for a brand targeting over 10% compounded annual revenue growth in the medium term.
Retail Domination
TFF has a clear mandate to grow its store count to 100 (from approximately 50) with a push into key flagship locations like Beijing, Singapore, and Rome. This aggressive retail expansion—a huge capital and operational undertaking—falls directly under the purview of Tagliabue as Group CEO, who will oversee manufacturing and drive business performance. This centralized, financially disciplined approach ensures capital is deployed effectively to build the required Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) infrastructure—a strategy that has already shown promising double-digit DTC growth for TFF in Q3 2025.
The Critical Impact
The new structure leverages the Zegna Group’s financial muscle and industrial expertise to rapidly scale TFF’s global footprint, turning a successful license into a global retail powerhouse, while ensuring the creative direction (now separate from the original founder) remains protected under Gildo Zegna’s cultural stewardship.
In essence, the 2026 succession is not a retreat; it’s the professionalization of the Group’s multi-brand operating model. It strategically separates the family-led creative vision and legacy (Gildo, Edoardo, Angelo) from the professional-led operational execution and financial discipline (Tagliabue), allowing each brand to achieve its specific, high-stakes growth targets in a highly segmented and polarized luxury market.
@TOM FORD FASHION
