Art For Earth

In collaboration with Ermenegildo Zegna

Fall 2020 Menswear Show
January 2020
Milan, Italy

Anne Patterson was commissioned by Zegna’s creative director, Alessandro Sartori, to create Art for Earth, an immersive installation in a former bronze factory in the Bovisa neighborhood of Milan. The installation was the setting for Zegna’s Fall/Winter 2020-2021 collection show and served as the opening event for Milan Fashion Week in January 2020. The installation is a massive suspended cube -- a play of color, matter and light-- that looks solid but is actually a transparent network of fabric.

Art for Earth was inspired by sustainability, and at its center is the idea of creating art from unexpected materials, reducing waste and reusing existing materials. Presented with fabrics that Zegna had left over from the last two years of production, Patterson chose a palette of green, grey, and blue, specifically selecting those fabrics containing recycled plastic and synthetic material.

The fiber art installation consists of 57 cables, each 14 meters long, supporting 3,563 strands of ribbon. The average length of each ribbon is 10.5 meters; altogether, 37 kilometers of ribbon from unused fabric were used in the installation.

Creative Director: Alessandro Sartori (Zegna)

Rigging: Bureau Betak

Assistants: Jesus Aquino, Leila Bencharnia, Otta Castellini, Mike Costello, Peter Helm, Elena Martinoni, Carolina Barberis Organista, Simone Pani, Jem Perucchini, Marcello Pipitone