It all started with the jacket. Giorgio Armani (Giorgio Armani turned and cracked the piece of clothing on the edge – tearing the lining, adapting the proportions, moving the buttons – until he was left with a flexible, lightweight shirt.
‘By removing every stiffness from the garment and discovering an unexpected naturalness’as he put it years later. “It was the starting point for everything that followed.”
The remodeling of the jacket in the 1970s was typical of his career as a fashion designer.
The elegance, he argued, meant simplicity. This was a five-decade career that would produce minimalist costumes with the best sales and converting his homonymous brand into a huge complex that produced high sewing, prêt-à -porter, aromas and interior home decoration, according to Reuters.
Known to fans of the fashion industry as “Re Giorgio” – King Giorgio – Armani became synonymous with the Italian style, helping to dress a generation of successful women, as well as men who wanted less “frustrated” clothes.
He combined the designer’s talent with meticulous attention to detail, directing a business that brought billions of dollars to revenue each year and contributing to the emergence of modern Italian fashion to a worldwide phenomenon.
Although he was one of the world’s leading designers, he carefully preserved his privacy and maintained the strict control of the company he created, maintaining his independence and working with a small and trusted group of family members and long -term partners.
Armani, a handsome man with piercing blue eyes and silver hair, often said that the purpose of fashion was to make people feel good about themselves – he was opposed to the rigid, meticulous lines that traditionally defined the high sewing.
“This is a weakness of me that affects both my life and my job”told Martin Scorsese’s documentary about him in 1990. “I am constantly thinking of adding or removing something. Mainly to remove something ‘, He mentioned himself by noting: “I can’t stand the demonstration.”
Armani died at the age of 91, Armani announced for its founder and chief executive on Thursday, without giving the cause of death. “He worked until his last days, devoting himself to the company, collections and many current and future projects”the company said. The funeral will be held privately, he added.
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To Milan
Giorgio Armani was born in 1934 in Piachendza, a city in the industrial heart of northern Italy, near Milan, one of the three children of Hugo Armani and Maria Raymond.
His father worked at the headquarters of the local fascist party before becoming an accountant in a transport company. His mother was a housewife.
Despite their limited means, his parents had an inner elegance, Armani told “Made in Milan”, and Maria’s sense of style shone in the clothes she made for her three children. “We were the envy of all our classmates,” he said. “We were rich even though we were poor.”
As a boy he experienced the difficulties of World War II. In his autobiography, “Per Amore”, he describes how he got into a ditch and covered Rosana’s younger sister with his jacket when a plane started shooting over.
The family moved to Milan after the war. His city seemed very cold and great at first, though he soon began to appreciate her distinctive beauty, as she told Scorsese.
It would be the beginning of a lifelong relationship. In Milan, he developed a love for cinema that later influenced his career. Eventually, he led his fashion team from there, helping to turn the unhappy, industrial city in the capital of Italy.
Armani studied to become a doctor, but gave up after two years at the university and then did his military service.
He made his first steps in fashion – which he never studied formally – when he was offered a job at the famed La Rinascente department store to help decorate the showers.
The first great opportunity
His first great opportunity came with an invitation to work for Italian designer Nino Cerruti in the mid -1960s. There he began experimenting with the deconstruction of the jacket.
“I started this profession almost by accident and slowly pulled me, stealing my life completely,” told Business of Fashion in 2015.
‘Work is a kind of orgasm’
As a designer, he quickly took advantage of two important trends in western society in the late 20th century – a more prominent role for women and a more fluid approach to masculinity.
“I had a sense of what really happened – women getting into the workplace, men accepting their soft side – early in my career, and that was the basis of my success,” Armani said in an interview with Esquire magazine marking his 90th birthday in 2024.
Armani presented his first collection of men’s clothing in 1975 and soon became popular in Europe. Five years later, he won the hearts of the glamorous American class when he dressed Richard Gere for the 1980 film “American Gigolo”, launching a long relationship with Hollywood.
In the same year, the luxurious Bergdorf Goodman department store became the first US -sales store in the US to launch a boutique of Armani women’s species inside the store, securing the designer’s transatlantic range.
In 1982, Time Magazine presented him in his cover with the title “The gorgeous style of Georgio”.
By stating a perfectionist, the designer overseeing every detail, from advertising to model hair. He often said that he was looking forward to ending on weekends to be able to get back to work.
“I have never taken drugs, but for me the outbreak of adrenaline I get from my job is better than any illusion or artificial euphoria. It is a kind of orgasm (if I am allowed to use this expression) »wrote in ” Per Amore ”.
He told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in October 2024 that he was planning to retire within the next two or three years, having just closed 90.
Hospital care for an unknown condition forced him to lose fashion shows for the first time in his career in June and early July this year.
‘Made me see the greatest world’
Armani founded his business with his partner Sergio Galeotti, whom he had met during a summer weekend at Tuscany’s Forte Dei Marmi resort in 1966.
‘It was the Sergio who believed in me’Armani told GQ magazine in 2025. “Sergio made me believe in myself. It made me see the biggest world. “
According to Reuters, Galeotti, who had AIDS, died in 1985 at the age of 40, with Armani directing the business on his own, with the help of his family and his long -term partner Leo dell’orco.
“I did not hesitate, though it was difficult, and I knew I had to learn new skills”, told the British Times in a 2019 interview. ‘Everything went well’he added.
Armani, the company, was one of the first Italian fashion brands to extend to new markets, building a strong presence in Asia and expanding its activities with new fashion series, such as the least accurate Emporio, to capitalize on an already famous name.
Other fashion houses such as Prada and Dolce & Gabbana eventually followed a similar strategy.
Armani also differentiated and turned to new products such as interior decoration pieces.
As the business grew, the control was increasing. In 1999, the New York Times questioned Guggenheim’s decision to host a retrospective exhibition of the designer’s work a few months after becoming an important benefactor of the New York -based Museum. The museum denied any return.
In 2014, fashion house paid 270m euros to settle an Italian tax issue, Il Sole 24 Ore said.
Ten years later, an Italian court was managed by an Armani ownership operation, which was accused of indirectly entrusted production to Chinese companies operating workers.
Armani’s statements also caused a few times. Speaking at Milan Fashion Week in 2020, Armani said: “I think it’s time to say what I think. Women continue to be in a hurry by designers ».
He clarified what he meant – that he opposed fashion trends that sexualized women and limited their style choices. The use of the word rape, however, shocked many.
‘An Armani after Armani’
Since his work made him incredibly rich, he had been “good” on luxury real estate. He had houses in Milan, as well as in the nearby Broni in northern Italy, on the southern island of Pantelleria, where he liked to pass in August, and at the Forte dei Marmi. He also had real estate in New York, Paris, Antigua island, as well as St. Moritz and St. Tropez.
Being a fan of sports, he owned the Olimpia Milano basketball team.
He wrote that he only trusted a few people and supported the independence of his business.
Over the years, the group has received several approaches from potential investors, including one in 2021 by John Elkann, the son of the Italian Agnelli family, and another from Gucci when Maurizio Gucci was still at the steering wheel, but Armani has always excluded any possible agreement.
He also refused to follow colleagues such as Prada’s house to import his company into the Stock Exchange.
“Success for me has never been the accumulation of wealth, but probably the desire to say, through my work, the way I think”wrote to GQ Italia in December 2017.
This independent attitude leaves a question about what his business will make to a luxury industry dominated by heavyweight groups, Reuters reports.
Armani’s heirs are expected to include Rosanna’s sister, two nieces and a nephew working in the business, long -term Dell’orco partner and an organization.
Silvana and Roberta, daughters of his deceased brother Sergio, as well as his nephew Andrea Camerana, son of Rosanna, worked with him in the Armani group. Dell’orco is also considered a family member.
In “Per Amore” he swore that his company would last, under the supervision of the people who surrounded him.
“There will be an Armani after Armani,” he wrote.
Source :Skai
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