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Stefano Aimone Reworks AGNONA’s Textile Legacy for Autumn/Winter 2026
LE MILE
Francesco Ilorini Mo used to arrive in Paris in a white coat with a suitcase full of fabrics. The image has the neatness of a brand myth, but it also explains AGNONA with unusual economy. Founded in 1953 in the foothills of the Italian Alps, the company made its name developing cloth for leading couturiers before establishing a ready-to-wear collection of its own in 1972. Material was already the business and the culture of the house before it became a wardrobe.
In 2026, that sequence feels newly relevant because cashmere has travelled far beyond the traditional luxury sector and naming an exceptional fibre no longer establishes distinction by itself. The difference increasingly lies in what a house is able to do with that fibre, and in whether decades of textile knowledge produce clothes that genuinely feel different in use. Aimone has been unusually candid about this shift, acknowledging that good cashmere now exists at radically different price levels.
AGNONA Autumn/Winter 2026
Wanderlust - Momo
AGNONA Autumn/Winter 2026
Wanderlust - Momo
Stefano Aimone can act on that question at a depth most creative directors cannot, because the company he designs for is also the company he owns. Since taking full control of AGNONA in 2021, he has been rebuilding collections, production and distribution while gradually moving the public identity of the house towards Milan. The new Via Santo Spirito flagship opened this spring, and an expanding archive is being developed alongside the headquarters and atelier. His great-grandfather Ermenegildo Zegna had helped finance Ilorini Mo’s early venture, although the more telling continuity lies in Aimone’s familiarity with the textile culture around Biella and in his decision to keep that knowledge active rather than ceremonial.
For Autumn/Winter 2026, Wanderlust translates this work into a collection shaped by movement, memory and changing winter landscapes, though its most persuasive thread stays close to daily wear. AGNONA is taking materials historically associated with preciousness and allowing them to behave with greater freedom. RainWeaver cashmere introduces weather protection, while the house’s Double constructions pursue warmth without cumbersome weight and extend into more relaxed parts of the wardrobe. Precious material is being asked to enter ordinary life with fewer conditions attached to it.
AGNONA has begun using the expression “Self Luxury” around this idea, placing the experience of the wearer ahead of obvious status communication. The terminology may be new, but the instinct is not. Long before discretion became one of luxury fashion’s dominant talking points, AGNONA was associated with a clientele attentive to almost imperceptible differences in fabric, colour and finish. Aimone loosens the formality around that reserve. Comfort carries more authority, and technical function can sit inside an expensive material without making refinement feel fragile. Across women’s and men’s wardrobes, the common ground is increasingly found in tactility, ease and an expectation that refinement should remain compatible with everyday movement.
AGNONA Autumn/Winter 2026
Wanderlust - Momo
AGNONA Autumn/Winter 2026
Wanderlust - Intimacy
The most personal passage in Wanderlust comes through “Momo”, the family name of Francesco Ilorini Mo. Aimone has been looking at the founder’s own wardrobe, his travels and the clothes connected to everyday factory life, allowing menswear and workwear references to enter the women’s collection alongside archival fabrics. Ilorini Mo dealt in some of the most refined textiles available while living a working life shaped by production, movement and business, so utility was already part of the world from which AGNONA emerged. Aimone can draw on that without reconstructing the past literally.
Stefano Aimone (CEO & Creative Director at AGNONA)
AGNONA Showroom, Via Archimede 53, Milan
AGNONA’s history is not concentrated in one bag shape, monogram or silhouette that needs to be repeatedly revived. Much of it survives in fabric books and technical knowledge, in the accumulated understanding of how material behaves once it is cut, handled and worn. The house has passed through distinct creative chapters under Walter Albini, Mila Schön, Stefano Pilati and Simon Holloway, each finding a different route through that foundation. As owner as well as creative director, Aimone can reshape the product and the structures around it at the same time.
Aimone has also been explicit about preserving AGNONA’s relatively small scale as its international presence grows, keeping him unusually close to product and production even as the specialist Italian workshops on which houses like AGNONA depend face mounting pressure. Some have disappeared or consolidated, while remaining capacity is increasingly absorbed by larger groups. For AGNONA, knowing who makes a fabric or garment therefore has practical value in the present, not merely historical charm.
AGNONA Autumn/Winter 2026
Wanderlust - Momo
AGNONA Autumn/Winter 2026
Wanderlust - Momo
AGNONA Autumn/Winter 2026
Wanderlust - Soft Shift
In Milan, the atelier and archive sit close to the finished clothes, while the Via Santo Spirito store gives AGNONA a more immediate urban presence without severing its connection to the textile culture around Biella. The move makes the house more visible while keeping its history in circulation as working material, present in the product and in the way the company presents itself today. AGNONA is becoming more decisively Milanese while remaining reserved in tone, its past functioning as an active resource beneath the surface of each collection.
Wanderlust works best when the knowledge behind it has already done its work by the time a garment reaches the wearer. An expensive material can tolerate real life while remaining refined, and the archive can shape a contemporary wardrobe without announcing itself. At its best, the present AGNONA makes textile knowledge felt before it needs to be explained.
AGNONA Autumn/Winter 2026
Wanderlust - Momo
AGNONA Autumn/Winter 2026
Wanderlust - Soft Shift
images (c) AGNONA
DISCOVER MORE: www.agnona.com
Explore AGNONA Autumn/Winter 2026 through Soft Shift, Intimacy, Momo and Afterglow, with cashmere, relaxed tailoring, outerwear and archival references running through the season.