Stefano Pilati is the designer’s designer, his tenures at Yves Saint Laurent (2004-2012) and Zegna (2014-2016) the stuff of fashion lore – an exercise in silhouette and fabrication, they captured a languid, sensual glamour that he continues to hone at his own genderless, seasonless Berlin-based label, Random Identities. ‘Silhouettes are essential,’ he said in a recent Instagram post looking back on his A/W 2006 collection for Yves Saint Laurent (his account has been transformed into a retrospective of sorts, cataloguing his past collections). ‘My concept has always been that fashion – therefore, clothes – is created to serve the body.’

Now, he brings his design philosophy to an altogether more wide-reaching project: a capsule collection of clothing for Spanish retailer Zara. It continues the brand’s string of high-profile collaborations in recent months, including with the hairstylist Guido Palau and photographer Steven Meisel. Rooted in a long-running relationship between Inditex chairperson Marta Ortega (Inditex is the clothing group that owns Zara), the new collection, says Pilati, serves as a ‘friendship anniversary’ for the pair, who met nine years ago. On her part, Ortega said that the decision largely came from her admiration for Pilati’s own personal sense of style, which inspires the collection.

Hints of a new era for Pilati came when the designer wiped his Instagram account this summer and began posting a series of video clips and photographs of his collections for Yves Saint Laurent, as well as other historic projects, with personal recollections. On 3 September 2024, he released the Zara news with a picture of himself and Ortega, while on 11 September, he revealed that he had hired a new CEO, Mario Grauso (formerly Holt Renfrew, Vera Wang and Puig), for Stefano Pilati Studios, which includes the Random Identities label. He captioned the Instagram: ‘Mercury out of retrograde’.

‘The personal, the intimate and real… an expression of freedom… the perfection of a style,’ Zara describes the collection, which is revealed today (26 September 2024) with a special campaign photographed by Steven Meisel and starring Pilati alongside his longtime muse, model Gisele Bündchen. Largely arriving in Pilati’s signature black, for women the pieces span faux fur coats, tuxedo-style tailoring, as well as more louche, fluid silhouettes that tie around the body with large bows. Prints, meanwhile, comprise miniature strawberries, or ‘Stefano Pilati Collection’ in a 1990s-style serif font on T-shirts.

In the men’s collection is a particularly appealing leather field jacket, alongside elongated double-breasted tailored blazers and a multitude of cardigan-style knitwear, some sliced at the sleeve. Meanwhile, a mesh T-shirt and eyelet-covered jacket seem to reference the Random Identities label, which is rooted in the Berlin nightlife scene. A series of accessories, such as circular handbags, face-shielding sunglasses and bold, 1980s-style jewellery, completes the collection, which is designed to be a comprehensive wardrobe, ‘timely but timeless’.

Stefano Pilati x Zara will be available in international stores as well as online from 3 October 2024.

zara.com