3 months ago
13
The impact of designer Giorgio Armani, who has died aged 91, could be felt in Italy where he ruled fashion as Re Giorgio (King Giorgio); in Hollywood where he transformed the way stars looked; and as far away as the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora, where the closest thing to a luxury store was Spotlight.
When the first Giorgio Armani in Australia opened in Sydney’s Martin Place in 1995, I was determined to travel from my home in Bundoora to see his unstructured suiting and feel his silky soft shirts, even if I could only afford to buy a bowl of chips in the store’s long gone cafe.
Giorgio Armani at his spring 2018 runway show in Milan.
I saved my money, booked a room at a boutique hotel and walked into that store with all the confidence a 21-year-old wearing a Country Road chambray shirt and Converse sneakers could muster. The dimly lit Sydney flagship was a shrine to simple silhouettes and exquisite fabrics in steel blues, soft charcoals and inky black.
I left two hours later with a shirt that skimmed my then-lanky frame and raced to check out of the hotel into a room above a Darlinghurst pub, a better fit for my significantly reduced budget. There was no money left for chips.
For almost 50 years, Armani made millions of dollars, eventually billions, selling dreams of style that made you ignore price tags. The empire would eventually stretch beyond clothes to top-selling fragrances, well-fitted underwear promoted by David and Victoria Beckham on traffic-stopping billboards in 2009, hotels, restaurants and furniture stores.
It was a different dream than the sheet-twisting one offered by his arch rival Gianni Versace, who died in 1997.
Loading
In 2015, Armani summed up the difference when he told Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine about a conversation he had with Versace: “He was looking at the models, and he said to me, ‘I dress sluts. You dress church ladies’.” The description upset Donatella Versace, who perhaps preferred Anna Wintour from Vogue’s more succinct: “Armani dresses the wife and Versace dresses the mistress.”
For decades Hollywood preferred to take the wife rather than the mistress approach on the red carpet at the Oscars, with the designer achieving a stranglehold on the event in the 90s, far tighter than one of his signature, unstructured suit jackets.
Hollywood was already familiar with Armani from his success dressing Richard Gere in the 1980 film American Gigolo. When Armani saw Jodie Foster collecting her first Oscar for The Accused in 1989, wearing an unflattering periwinkle dress, he spied an opportunity beneath the taffeta.
The following year Armani dressed Jodie Foster, Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Roberts, and Jessica Tandy for the Oscars, which were dubbed The Armani Awards.
When Foster collected her second trophy for The Silence of the Lambs in 1992, the actress wore a white Armani tuxedo jacket and shimmering pantsuit. “I rescued [her] from the worst-dressed list at the Oscars,” Armani told Grazia. He also ushered in an era of designer dressing for the red carpet that transformed the Academy Awards into a major event on the fashion calendar.
In the decades that followed, Armani’s business and fortune continued to grow, but his influence was challenged by the emergence of influential fashion figures such as Tom Ford at Gucci, Hedi Slimane at Dior Homme and Phoebe Philo at Celine.
By the time I began attending Giorgio Armani runway shows at the cavernous Armani Teatro in his sprawling, brutalist headquarters at 59 Via Bergognone in Milan while working for Vogue Australia in the 00s, there was something almost old-fashioned about the presentations. Carefully positioned members of staff would lead “spontaneous” bursts of applause, as a seemingly endless parade of unidentifiable models in slim trousers, brocade bolero jackets and unusual hats sauntered with Italian nonchalance.
Loading
The clothes were beautiful, but it was unclear where these women were going.
While other labels would race to install new creative directors, King Giorgio, like Queen Elizabeth II, didn’t believe in abdication. It was startling in June when Armani was unable to take his bow at the menswear shows with his longtime collaborator and head of menswear design, Leo Dell’Orco, receiving the honour. Dell’Orco is tipped to continue taking bows in the future.
There weren’t many opportunities to wear my Giorgio Armani shirt in Bundoora, or at the newspaper where I worked in the 90s. It finally received an airing in 2007 when I attended a dinner Cate Blanchett hosted for the designer to celebrate his role as patron of the Sydney Theatre Company.
That evening, his brilliant teeth, shining like Carrera marble in his perpetually tanned face, Armani placed his hands on the shoulders of my shirt, smiled and nodded. It felt like a blessing – to keep dreaming of an approach to dressing that’s worth skipping a bowl of hot chips.
Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday
Most Viewed in Lifestyle
Loading
