Giorgio Armani - Fashion Unlimted
Coco Chanel freed women from the contracting corset. Christian Dior created the New Look style. Yves Saint Laurent paved the way for the Ready-to-Wear wardrobe. They were designers who fully lived up to the label of legendary or iconic. But their story has already been written. Giorgio Armani, on the other hand, is a living legend who has made his name by creations demanding precision, punctuality and an unwavering pursuit of perfection.
The word perfection is also the one to use when assessing Giorgio Armani's life's work as a brand and business. Fact is, he has managed to create one of the world's most famous brands. A fashion empire that includes names like EA7, Armani Collezioni and not least Emporio Armani. The latter is a brand that many might misinterpret as “Armani's empire”. But in fact, the Italian word Emporio simply means a big store. And that's exactly what 88-year-old Giorgio Armani has created. A big business that, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, has a net worth of 9.3 billion dollars.
But the economic value he has created since he started his business almost 50 years ago is one thing. Another is the influence he has had - and continues to have - on the clothes we wear. Armani is still one of the world’s most popular brands. Both among the very young, who swear by EA7 t-shirts and sweaters, and among the more mature, who are happy to spend a small fortune on a pair of Armani Jeans.
Designer by Chance
Surprisingly, it seems a bit of a coincidence when in 1975 Giorgio Armani opened his first store in Milan, where, together with his friend, he presented his first ready-to-wear men's collection.
For as a young man he was fascinated by the medical sciences. This fascination was partly inspired by a novel by A.J. Cronin entitled 'The Citadel' (1937), in which a young idealistic doctor tries to improve the conditions of Welsh coal miners. In fact, Giorgio Armani was even admitted to medical school at the University of Milan. But after three years, he had to leave his studies to serve his military service in the Italian army. Here he was posted to a military hospital in Verona.
Whether it was the military understanding of medicine or something else entirely is impossible to say. In any case, he soon had enough of changing dressings and emptying bedpans. So, when his military service ended in 1955, he sought new challenges. First, he landed a job in Milan in one of the hottest department stores of the time: La Rinascente. A chain of high-end fashion stores with flagships in several Italian cities, including two in Rome. At first, he was hired to decorate the store's windows, but progressed to a position as a salesperson in the menswear department. This was his first acquaintance with the world of fashion.
But Armani wanted more than just to sell clothes. He wanted to create them himself. And in the mid-60s, he joined Nino Cerruti, where he worked designing fashion clothes for men. In his spare time, he worked as a freelance designer. This was a busy period where he often created new designs for ten different manufacturers at a time.
Then, in the late 60s, he met the architect Sergio Galeotti. It turned into a lifelong friendship that lasted not only on a professional level. It was an amorous relationship that only ended when Galeotti died suddenly of a heart attack in 1985.
It was the same Galeotti who persuaded Giorgio Armani to open his own design studio in Milan. As a self-employed designer, he continued to work freelance for a number of Italian fashion houses. But when he had the opportunity to showcase his designs at the Sala Bianca - one of the most famous fashion shows of the time at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence - the international press lined up to praise the now 40-year-old designer.
The Armani Look
But what exactly was it that set Armani apart from other fashion icons of the time? First and foremost, it was the straight, tailored lines of his designs. Although shoulder pads for both men and women were extremely popular in the 1980s, he ripped them out of jackets. He reinvented tailoring in a light, modern and more sensual style. Quite simply, he managed to create clothes that suited the modern man, combining an up-to-date casual style with the more formal. And in fact, Armani was one of the first to introduce the concept of Street Wear.
All in all, it's fair to say that he deformalized the stacks of blouses, shirts and trousers in our wardrobes. Value systems have played a big role in Armani's creations. As early as the mid-1980s, he made a conscious effort to incorporate egalitarianism into his designs. A simple move to erase the differences between women's and men's perceptions of fashion. The Emporio garments had to be wearable by both men and women. An idea of a more fluid perception of gender and identity that Armani made fashionable long before anyone else.
The result was - and still is - elegant collections. Timeless and discreet. Although, especially in his haute couture creations, he has a fondness for glossy, shiny fabrics such as silk and satin in crisp, bright colours. The lines may be modernist, but the materials are lavish, sensual. Almost voluptuous.
In the world of architecture, his clothing design would probably be comparable to Le Corbusier's 'housing machines', where form follows function. And where unnecessary decoration is almost criminal. Just six years after going solo, he had fundamentally changed the world of fashion in a way that carried on into the 21st century.
But it was in the world of cinema that Giorgio Armani's clothes almost achieved cult status. This happened when actor Richard Gere became a living advertisement for Armani in the movie American Gigolo (1980). The images of Gere as the gigolo Julian Kaye, carefully opening his drawers of perfectly folded shirts with visible labels, then running his fingers across the lapels of the tailored jackets, was better advertising than Giorgio Armani could have bought. It projected his name to a far larger audience than any fashion magazine could ever reach.
The movie made Richard Gere a star. And Armani with him. Since then, he has created costumes for over 200 movies.
Red Carpet Dresses
The success of producing luxury fashion for Richard Gere’s character truly opened Giorgio Armani's eyes to the power of the movie world. It made him realize that actors on the red carpet would be the perfect showcase for his creations. Whether it was haute couture gowns for women or stylish tuxedos for men. It's known as the Red-Carpet Power Dress.
It was a whole new way of branding. And according to Armani, it was no longer comme il faut to display excessive glamor, glitters and otherwise appear as sparkling, unapproachable divas. "It was a new era where actors wanted to look like a better version of themselves. They wanted comfortable clothes that weren't costumes. It was definitely in line with what I was trying to change in the fashion world," he told Vanity Fair in 2016.
It all started with a somewhat eclectic outfit for actress Diane Keaton at the 1978 Oscars. After that night, Armani got busy. Over the years, he has created red carpet outfits for big names like Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett, Salma Hayek, Jodie Foster and many more. And when Ben Affleck and Matt Damon accepted their Oscars for Good Will Hunting, they both wore a stylish tuxedo created by the undisputed king of the fashion world.
Ethical Design
Haute Couture lies at the basis of the Ready-to-Wear collections. But it is still a job that Giorgio Armani tries to approach with a firm set of values. He himself claims to be an 'anti-fashion man'.
"The fashion world has changed. And everyone is chasing quick success. This affects the designer’s material choices. Manufacturers choose the easy way out. That's why I'm anti-fashion," he stated in an interview with GQ Magazine. He himself tries to deliver sustainable fashion. Even when it comes to the multiple spin-offs he has created with perfumes, interior solutions, hotels and all the other kinds of designs he has put his signature on.
Besides, he was one of the first to set limits on how thin the models in the Armani group could be. But for a man who created a fashion empire worth more than 9 billion dollars, it's a bit of a paradox to claim to be an opponent to the fashion industry. It is that same industry - and our own desire for fashionable clothes - that has made his fortune. A fortune that includes 9 elegant homes in Europe, the United States and, not least, his vacation home in Antigua. Not to mention his 200-foot luxury yacht. Designed, of course, by the master himself.
Giorgio Armani is now 88 years old. He has no children but has through the years involved his niece, Roberta Armani, in his business, where she now functions as Brand Ambassador.
The text is translated by Pernille Kaufmann. See more here