But this was at a time when the war was advancing on our town. So at the last minute, the show had to be canceled.
He was great. The show will continue tomorrow. Photo: Archivio Alfa Castaldi. Bottom: With Richard Gere at an L. A true cliff-hanger. And I would run around the bedroom, so pissed off that it was over! I can't quite articulate why, but you still seem like a boy from the provinces in the big city. Very much. Like a boy from the country, out in the world. And you seem like a shy man. I've dealt with things I never thought were possible. The public, the press, the echoes around the world.
And the pretense that I had to sustain. I had to fake being up to the challenge. Apart from the painful things I had to overcome. It was very heavy. Very heavy. Not only for love, but because there were people missing from my life. Like Sergio. But also there is a painful period after. Just over a decade later, Armani lost his brother, also named Sergio, when he died in What would you say to Sergio [Galeotti] if he were here now?
He'd be crazy with joy. I think principally for me. But also for him. I also had to learn so much about the company, to keep it going. Many people didn't think I could do it. They didn't believe in me. It was disappointing to discover—even within my own company—that there were people who thought I would not be able to do it.
So there was an exodus. And I had to roll up my sleeves and learn to speak to lawyers, to publicists. Now, I could decide today to leave this business. But I look in the faces of everyone here. The mailman who has children. The young woman who has finally made it to a job at Armani. Or the people who have been here for thirty years. All of this prevents me from making what is, in the end, the self-centered decision to stop.
Maybe I should have done something where I could express myself more, without any conditions. Like a writer. A writer who gets to write what he thinks. End of story. In the fashion world, you have to make clothes to sell, you have to make clothes for the press, you have to make clothes for yourself. What I mean is, everything is an obligation. But a writer? A pure artist? Maybe he doesn't make one lira, but: He does what he wants. Armani's breakthrough as a designer came almost immediately after he and Galeotti started the company, when Armani took a traditional men's suit and literally ripped the guts out of it.
Until Armani, most "business suits" were boxy and stiff. Armani, wanting a softer profile, sliced out the shoulder pads. He cut the pants fuller. Everything was looser. And then there was his palette of dusty gray and green and brown—the earthy colors, I noticed on my train ride, of the sky and countryside and stone buildings around Piacenza.
There was a new sexiness to all of it, and the unstructured, soft jacket revolutionized men's fashion. If, in the s and early '90s, you were a man in the creative industries or aspired to look like you were —media, architecture, acting, maybe even the coach of an NBA championship franchise based in Los Angeles—you wore one thing: Armani.
I met Armani for the first time on the morning of one of his men's shows in Milan. It was early, not yet 9 A. I found him in the deserted backstage dressing area. If you didn't know who he was, you could mistake him for a pensioner who had wandered astray from some tour: He sat quietly at a folding table, reading a newspaper. He was dressed in his uniform: navy wool pants, a navy cashmere hoodie, and white sneakers. His skin was the color of tobacco and his hair was so white it seemed to radiate.
Fashion houses are often powered by drama and thrive on chaos, never more so than in the hours leading up to a runway show. That's what was so weird about this scene. It was nothing but serenity. A couple of hours later, Armani stands backstage, staring at a monitor that shows the stage and runway. He's impatient with how slow the editors and buyers are to fill their seats.
Armani hates slowness. While some designers are often delayed in starting their shows, Armani has the models dressed and ready a good hour before the show starts.
Over the past sixty minutes he has been everywhere in the backstage area, inspecting every model and giving "last touches"—adding a hat, removing a jacket. He is never not noticing, not evaluating, not editing. Indeed, as one employee told me, he also remembers everything: "He is more than happy, if he has to prove a point to you, to bring up that time seven years ago when you screwed something up.
He returns to the monitor and then, to keep the screen's glow from bleeding onto the runway during the show, he pulls a blackout curtain around himself; his assistant, Paul; and the producer of the show. A moment later, Armani pulls me in and draws the curtain closed behind us. There are now four of us in a space not much larger than a bathtub. Pitch-black except for the faint blue of the monitor. Lights are cued. Music is cued. The first model enters our cloistered staging area, and then something surprising and sweet happens—a brief series of gestures that are repeated with each model as he sends them forth.
Armani puts his hand on the model's shoulder or forearm, and as he watches the monitor to track the previous model making his way down the runway, he turns to the young man facing him and steadies him. Then he gives him a gentle squeeze of the biceps, followed by two firm pats on the shoulder. No words. In the moment, it's hard not to see Armani as a grandfather, attempting to instill his own sense of confidence in the model who—for the next thirty seconds, anyway—will be responsible for representing Giorgio Armani to the world.
You did not start your business until you were If you had a son and you were going to give him advice on creating his second act, what would you tell him? Be faithful to your ideas. Unless they are idiotic. Try not to have a complex about your work, or to pressure yourself to find some mythic, divine, or exceptional craft. Be humble. Once the decision to do the job is made, consider the job as the director of a bank would.
That is to say, with the same precise rules. Having thought this way has helped me arrive at where I am today. Do your critics hurt you? People who say you are not relevant? I have many enemies. Many people who belittle me. This jacket is boring! I made the jacket unstructured because I wanted to accentuate the body.
See the sensuality. You made your name with an unstructured jacket, but you like structure. It is who I am. I crave it. I have a very rigorous attitude. For example, I make fashion, but I don't dress fashionably, because I know that fashion does not work for me. For my physique, my manner. His fascination with the human form led to two years of medical school.
Taking a break, Armani had to complete his required military service. He soon got his first taste of fashion. Through a friend, he got a job at a department store. Despite his great success, Armani remains modest about his efforts. Several family members work for him in this vast enterprise. His sister Rosanna works at Armani as do two of his nieces, Silvana and Roberta. With more than three decades in the business, Armani has enjoyed a longevity as a designer experienced by few others.
Armani stands as one of fashion's most distinguished leaders. He seems "almost presidential — wise, serene and comfortable in his role now as the reigning eminence of Milan fashion," wrote a journalist for The New York Times. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.
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His trademark was reinterpreting the traditional business suits to unstructured and comfortable styles for men and a more masculine look for women. He was the first designer after Christian Dior to appear on the cover of Times magazine. He used to approach celebs to wear his designs on events. Giorgio Armani also designed costumes for theater, stage and airline crew.
His long term partner Galeotti died due to cancer in and although people thought this would be the end for Armani, he not only increased his business activities he proved to the world that he was an extremely talented executive and designer. His latest business venture is Armani hotels. He opened his first hotel in Dubai and another in Milan. Armani is one of the greatest designers who have made their mark in the fashion industry by creating more than three decades of remarkable designs and styles.
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