Fashion Icon Giorgio Armani Dies At 91: A Legacy That Will Be Felt For Decades

Despite the hyperbolic and fleeting tendencies of the fashion industry, few designers have had the impact of Giorgio Armani, who has died in Milan at the age of 91.

The new look and attitude the designer offered 50 years ago is today largely taken for granted and, at first glance, seems rather unassuming. But from the outset, Armani’s focus and determination was to provide his customers with an easier way of dressing that was at once practical, sophisticated and thoughtful, yet unpretentious, powerful and subtle.

His suits required little effort on the part of the wearer, whose individuality and identity were meant to shine rather than being overwhelmed by his clothes. His approach to tailoring coincided with the growing awareness of health and fitness in the 1970s and 1980s.

Armani’s body-conscious approach soon garnered attention in Hollywood, and he was asked to provide the wardrobe for Richard Gere in the now cult-classic 1980 film American Gigolo.

Humble beginnings

Born in 1934 in the small northern Italian town of Piacenza, Armani was originally destined to be a country family doctor. Before founding his own fashion house in 1975 relatively late in life, at the age of 41, Armani began in the fashion industry as a window dresser for the Milanese department store La Rinascente.

In 1961, he was hired by stylist and businessman Nino Cerruti to work in the Cerruti family’s textile factory. This new and fertile environment proved seminal to Armani’s future in textile development and would determine his own aesthetic formula.

While working at Cerruti, designing for the firm’s Hitman menswear collection, Armani proverbially and literally took the stuffing out of traditional Italian tailoring, offering men a modern attitude and a novel, less rigid way of moving and living in their jackets and suits.

Quickly, and throughout his 50-year career, the now iconic multi-purpose Armani jacket provided men and women alike armour as much as comfort and support for the body underneath.

Encouraged by his romantic and business partner Sergio Galeotti, an architect who remained Armani’s business partner until his untimely death in 1984, Armani officially founded his own fashion house in July 1975.

He quickly changed the vocabulary of both menswear and womenswear: he incorporated and adapted textiles traditionally reserved for men’s tailoring for his womenswear collections while at the same time softening the fabrics and silhouettes of his menswear. Women appeared stronger, independent, resilient and ready to take on the workplace of the 1980s, while the Armani man was less aggressive and instead attractive and glamourous.

Conquering Hollywood

For American Gigolo, Armani sidestepped vulgarity and provided the lead character with a fluid and unstructured swagger and sex appeal.

Hollywood was immediately hooked. Armani had been enamoured by the classic era of cinema as a child and the star quality of actors like Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Geta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, so he was keenly aware of the value and cultural potential of not only dressing actors in films, but also saw the red carpet as what was, until then, an untapped resource.

Armani soon had a major impact on red carpet dressing, so much so that industry bible Women’s Wear Daily dubbed the 1990 Oscars the “Armani Awards.”

This red carpet transformation was the result of Armani’s love of cinema and his business acumen as much it was his collaboration with Wanda McDaniel, an American whom he recruited in 1988, the same year he opened his first boutique in Beverly Hills.

As a social columnist and well connected to Hollywood’s elite, McDaniel was hired as a special liaison to Armani’s increasing film industry clientele. Their collaboration was a force to be reckoned with in the industry.

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Armani’s personal abode

Fuelled by a steadfast drive, the personal and professional was indistinguishable for Armani, so much so that the designer’s palazzo at 21 via Borgonuovo in the heart of Milan served as both his home as well as the theatre where he staged his men’s and women’s runway collections from 1984 until 2000.

The space provided a personal and intimate invitation to more than just fashion shows, but a lifestyle empire in the making.

In addition to co-curating a 25-year retrospective exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the year 2000 also saw the designer transform the brand’s DNA into a global lifestyle proposition that today encompasses hotels, spas, Michelin Star-awarded restaurants, makeup, jewellery, home furnishings and chocolates, among other items.

From the unstructured jacket that’s worn with ease to the social media frenzy garnered by red carpets, Armani’s imprint can be seen in every corner of the fashion industry and around the globe. His impact and legacy will be felt for decades to come.

This article by John Potvin, Professor, Art and Design History, Concordia University, was first published in The Conversation.