Giorgio Armani, legendary Italian fashion designer, dies aged 91

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and moreStay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Giorgio Armani, the legendary Italian fashion designer and fashion empire owner, has died aged 91.With one of the most recognisable names in the industry, Armani is considered by fashion historians and commentators to be one of the most influential figures in European fashion of the 20th century. He is credited for giving working women in the Eighties a wardrobe of feminine, timeless and wearable suits for them to wear to the office. He would say later in his career that he designed elegant styles for the “public, not the fashion industry”. After the launch of his eponymous label in 1975, the designer oversaw the expansion of his signature menswear line into an international luxury fashion empire including Emporio Armani, Amrani Exchange and a higher-end Giorgio Armani line, to also offering accessories, footwear, cosmetics and home decor.Before his death, Armani was named Italy’s second-richest man, after the heir to the Nutella empire, Giovanni Ferrero, with his business expanding to restaurants, luxury hotels – such as one Armani Hotel in the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates – and a beauty partnership with L’Oréal.Armani’s designs have evolved over the decades, but he is largely credited for revolutionising the way that women dressed for work and expressed themselves in professional environments. His runway shows were more decadent: his catwalks would shimmer with extravagant headpieces, ruffled collars and sequinned dresses – yet with the garment’s construction based on classic silhouettes. Born in the northern Italian town of Piacenza on 11 July 1934, Armani was raised by his parents Maria Raimondi and Ugo Armani alongside his older brother Sergio and younger sister Rosanna. He described his family as growing up with not much money, but his school friends would be jealous of his clothes, which were all handmade by his mother.He said later in his career that he was always inspired by his parents’ “inner elegance”, even though they couldn’t afford luxury items. Long before Armani successfully tried his hand at fashion, he grew up aspiring towards a career in medicine, and studied an undergraduate course in the department of medicine at the University of Milan, before dropping out in 1953 after three years.Armani briefly joined the Italian army and was placed in an infirmary in Verona shortly after leaving university for two years. But he took a new pathway when he became a window dresser for La Rinascente, a prominent department store in Milan, where he would work his way up to become a sales associate in the menswear department, and later secured his first designing role at Nino Cerruti in the 1960s.In the late Sixties, Armani met architect Sergio Galeotti, which sparked the beginning of their personal and professional relationship that lasted many years, with the pair founding Armani’s namesake label together in 1975, when Armani was 31 years old. That October, Armani presented his first collection of men’s ready-to-wear for spring/summer 1976 and produced a women’s line for the same season.They didn’t witness their breakthrough until five years later in 1980, when they dressed actor Richard Gere for his role as Julian Kaye in the film American Gigolo. Armani used his passion for cinema as an opportunity for advertising, like designing costumes for the 1987 film The Untouchables, and later went on to dress Leonardo DiCaprio’s character for the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street.Armani was known firstly for revolutionising simple and elegant suits, but later expanded the business beyond the realms of ready-to-wear fashion, and in the late Eighties, he signed an agreement with French beauty company L’Oréal to create perfumes and cosmetics for Armani Beauty – which still see high mainstream success today – and introduced the Armani Junior, Armani Jeans, and Emporio Armani lines. He introduced more lines such as Emporio Underwear, Swimwear, and Accessories in 1982.In 1991, he opened a line of simpler designs, selling more day-to-day pieces like T-shirts, for men and women under the name A/X Armani Exchange.Armani would dress Hollywood stars and musicians, and was responsible for deciding the style of his longtime friend Eric Clapton, who had his whole band wear Armani.While the designer was intensely private about his personal life, he admitted in an interview with Vanity Fair in 2000: “I have had women in my life. And sometimes men.”Until his death, he was the chief executive and the sole shareholder of Giorgio Armani S.p.A, which makes the brand one of the few leading Italian labels from that era to remain independent from conglomerate groups.Into the 2000s, Armani remained a pioneer in fashion and technology: he was the first designer in the haute couture world to broadcast a collection live on the internet in 2007, for his Armani Privé spring/summer 2007 fashion show via MSN.Armani remained closely involved in the day-to-day running of the business, while his aides had previously claimed that there wasn’t a document or financial figure he didn’t sign off.The designer told The Financial Times in the years before his death that he was afraid to die because he would no longer be in control of his namesake label.“I know Giorgio Armani, the company, is identified with me, so it is my responsibility to make sure this will continue and that the company will have a footprint that will resemble il signor Armani,” he said in 2023.Later in his career, he became increasingly outspoken about people in the fashion industry, such as calling US Vogue editor Anna Wintour “not professional” and, on another occasion, criticising the way some gay men dress, by saying “a man has to be a man”.Armani previously called John Galliano, the Dior designer who was sacked in 2011 after making anti-semitic remarks in a Paris bar, “a genius but also a victim”.He once said that his own designs were for the “public, not the fashion industry”, in response to critics who said that his designs were too commercial or too boring.Armani does not have any children. But he is survived by his nieces Roberta and Silvana Armani, who work for the Armani group, while Andrea Camerana, his nephew, is a board member.



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