Fresh from ‘Severance’, John Turturro tries male modeling

When John Turturro saw that the setting for Zegna’s runway show here was a grassy knoll, he wondered if he had fallen down an Italian wormhole and landed back on the set of “Severance.”

“That was my first thought,” said Mr. Turturro backstage after the show, still brimming with energy from having just completed his first ever turn as a runway model.

See, Zegna’s green stage looked a lot like a set from Season 2 of “Severance,” which premiered Friday. It isn’t quite a spoiler to discuss this as the nubby green landscape is visible in the season trailer. Still, Mr. Turturro, 67, the American journeyman actor who plays one of the metaphysically fractured Lumon Industries employees in the show, was not keen to reveal more about where the show was going.

So we left it at that. But Mr. Turturro was happy to discuss his model range for 115-year-old Zegna. (For what it’s worth, the setting was designed to evoke the grassland where sheep graze: Zegna used the collection to introduce Vellus Aureum designs, which it boasts are made from the finest wool in the world. Grass, sheep, wool. Okay. )

“It was my maiden walk,” said Mr. Turturro, still dressed in the plunging V-neck sweater and swishy pleated pants he wore on the runway. He had dropped the va-va-voom tweed coat and it was lying nearby.

A “Severance” outfit this was not. The show’s corporate cogs trot around in blue suits and uninspired no-iron shirts – clothes that make them seem innocuous, so they’re invisible.

In contrast, this masterful Zegna collection, designed by Alessandro Sartori, Zegna’s longtime artistic director, required close inspection and a good bit of attention. Plaids were scaled up as if viewed through a microscope. And a velvet suit, a male archetype about as old as Zegna himself, scrunched up like a cuddly bathrobe.

Peer closer: Yes, it was two button-up shirts tricky stacked on top of each other. (It may have been lost on Mr. Sartori, an Italian, but to American eyes this is layer upon layer reminiscent of one person: Steve Bannon.) And the button on that sport coat was planted lower than usual. And yes, its lapels were heavier than average, making the models, many of them gray-bearded and a good generation beyond the models you usually see in Milan, look like 1970s casino magnates you wouldn’t cross.

When Mr. Turturro walked his rookie walk – his coat dropped back at the shoulders, hands stuffed in his pockets, a slight smile that conveys he was in command and unabashed – it was clear how Zegna had won over the Davos set and confident Hollywood types.

“You would feel that at my age you don’t get new experiences,” said Mr. Tour tour after the show. “This was a new experience for me.” He was definitely far from Lumon Industries.