What happens when sportswear meets hi-tech? Zegna Sport provides one answer.
Part of Italy's Ermenegildo Zegna label, Zegna Sport has opened an Asian flagship shop in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, offering a hi-tech world of trendy menswear.
Its Fall-Winter 2009/10 collection features futuristic designs, with almost "robotic" colors like silver, black, light blue, and grey. If that seems a tad cold, wearers end up with a neat and clean feeling. Hidden technology and innovative ideas blend to create a sporty and urban lifestyle look. The breathable water-proof fabrics also mean you can work out with minimal sweating.
The sports line uses cutting-edge "Ecotech", a textile made from 100 percent recycled polyester yarns, so there is no harm to the environment when you want to throw it away. The coats are two-sided, with dark colors outside and silver inside, each with slightly different styles.
Zegna Sport produced an iJacket as early as in 2007. This iJacket has Bluetooth and Eleksen's Elek Text smart fabric controls. The wearer can touch the jacket's sleeves and enjoy the music in their iPods, make calls from their phones, and control their PDAs. The luxury did not come cheap - $1,700. This year, the technology upgrades. The Ecotech Solar Jacket, containing Ecotech, has a detachable solar cell system on each jacket's sleeve. It can convert sunlight into renewable energy to the battery within the coat, which can charge your iPod, cellphone, or any other movable device. But what confuses its wearers is how to clean these hi-tech jackets.
