Giorgio Armani, a name, a style, an empire

By: Elora Bain

From a fashion brand launched in 1974 with, says legend, a capital of 10,000 dollars, Giorgio Armani built an independent empire with a name that has exceeded fashion limits to multiply success in perfumes, in the house sector or even confectionery and luxury hotels. The Italian stylist died Thursday, September 4 at the age of 91, the Armani group announced in a press release, in which the fashion company cries “He signed Armani, (…) his creator, founder and tireless engine”.

Born on July 11, 1934 in Piacenza (Émilie-Romagne), in northern Italy, in a very modest family, Giorgio Armani first chose medicine studies he abandoned. In neighboring Lombardy, he rubs into fashion as a rinascente and a Milanese department store, before attending Nino Cerruti (1930-2022), then a great creator of a fashion for men. His meeting with the architect Sergio Galeotti (1945-1985), who became his companion, helps him imagine the creation of his own house in 1974.

A timeless style

All his life, Giorgio Armani has kept a classic approach, with clothes perfectly cut in beautiful materials. For man, he imagined an almost timeless chic elegance. His style added a relaxation in fluid models, which were sometimes offered without lining. Her vision of the woman was quite androgynous, seizing with audacity and authority of the male codes of the costume, a style forever boyish. Sometimes qualified as minimalist, its fashion has always remained chic and elegant.

He extended his universe with a more accessible and younger line: Armani Jeans, in 1981. Conversely, he designed the very high -end with Private Armani, by creating haute couture collections essentially presented in Paris as part of the official calendar from 2005. Annexed brands like Armani Junior, Emporio (a false friend in Italian who does not mean “empire” “Bazaar”), Exchange or the EA7 sportswoman completed the range of the offer by receiving different audiences.

Cinema passion

Very interested in cinema, Giorgio Armani has often dressed actors and actresses and was a huge success in the United States. Already in 1978, Diane Keaton was dressed in Armani when she received the Oscar for the best actress for Annie Hallfrom Woody Allen. And he will dress it later for the film The bride’s father (1991).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqkunHx8js

Richard Gere’s costumes for American Gigolo In 1980 also marked the spirits. Very often dressed by the Italian stylist with whom she had friendships, Jodie Foster perfectly embodies the Armani woman. In 1992, when she in turn obtained the Oscar for The silence of the lambsthe American actress wore a creamy white Armani tailor.

Jodie Foster Wore A Suit by Giorgio Armani at the 1992 Oscars, where she won an academy award for Best Actress for Her Role in “The Silence of the Lambs”
byu/Lugubious_onion inwhatthefrockk

On the big screen, Giorgio Armani also designed the science fiction wardrobe of Jodie Foster for the film Elysium (2013), whose action is in 2154. On February 7, 2025, on the occasion of the 30e Critics ‘Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, the actress wore a private Armani evening dress, reborn with sequins and crystals. If his style is most often classic, Giorgio Armani has sometimes been able to get out of it, for example with eccentric and spectacular outfits for Lady Gaga and his tour “The Born This Way Ball” in 2012.

Iconic perfumes

The transalpine creator embarked on perfumes in 1982 and it was L’Oréal who developed his license. After the failure of Giò, a feminine, it is his “flanker” (a variation which partly uses an already deposited name) acqua di Gaò in the masculine which becomes a worldwide success, still well classified since 1996. A fragrance composed by Annick Ménardo, Christian Dussoulier and Alberto Morillas, who continues to sign new versions. Giorgio Armani closely monitored the launches of the brand’s perfumes and intervened in their design and the choice of fragrances.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttc7uino5B0

For its collection of private Armani perfumes, I interviewed him in Milan in his apartment, a place in his image, chic, elegant, punctuated with very beautiful objects. In almost sports session (he stretched out on the edge of the table in his living room), he told the story of the first opus in the collection that was particularly close to his heart. He had chosen to evoke a family memory with reminiscences of the incense odors he breathed when he accompanied his grandmother in the church.

The story is pretty and even if marketing uses it, it remains charming and marked me. The magnificent Kotibé wood sculpture bottle was surmounted by a pebble shape inspired by stones: black for incense wood, purple amethyst leather, two magnificent fragrances signed Michel Almairac, without forgetting the green of Jade de Jade d’Antoine Maisondieu.

The range of makeup was first developed by Pat McGrath before Linda Cantello. In care, Crema Nera plunges to the volcanic resources of Pantelleria Island (located between Sicily and Tunisia), where the designer also had a beautiful house in the local style of dammusi.

Creation of an empire and family future

Very early on, Giorgio Armani felt the interest that developed for the interiors, the decoration and launched Armani Casa, who multiplied the proposals of furniture and decorative objects from the year 2000. The group then diversified in luxury hotels and also the pleasure of the mouth with Armani Dolci, a range of candies and chocolates, from 2002.

Passionate about culture, he also imagined his museum, an exhibition space that partly shows his work. Opened in 2015 in Milan, the place celebrated its forty years of career. Originally cereal warehouse, the building was baptized Armani/Silos in tribute to its past as a storage place. Repeated by the Japanese architect Tadao Andō, the space has transformed into a magnificent concrete structure with a window in a common banner throughout the building.

This sober but magnificent place is discovered on several levels around a central vacuum. A cathedral designed for Armani fashion with the idea that the creator had to reflect on the role of creation for “Understand how much fashion often accompanies and anticipates important changes in society”.

The rooms are arranged around themes dear to the designer such as exoticism, light, androgyny … Exhibitions also pay tribute to talents that Giorgio Armani admired, such as the magnificent exhibition on Tadao Andō in 2019 or that dedicated in 2020 to the German photographer Peter Lindbergh, who died a year earlier.

The Armani group remained independent. Its eponymous founder never wanted to sell and prepared his succession with family with his sister Rosanna and his nephews and nieces, who are already part of the company. His right -hand man for years, Leo Dell’orco, signed the last collections and came to greet after the last fashion show, at the end of June in Milan. All will no doubt tackle the mind instilled for five decades by Giorgio Armani. The spirit of an elegant and chic fashion will remain resolutely timeless, as well as a name which evokes with pride Italy.

Elora Bain

Elora Bain

I'm the editor-in-chief here at News Maven, and a proud Charlotte native with a deep love for local stories that carry national weight. I believe great journalism starts with listening — to people, to communities, to nuance. Whether I’m editing a political deep dive or writing about food culture in the South, I’m always chasing clarity, not clicks.