Anna Wintour paid tribute to the late fashion designer Giorgio Armani in Vogue on Friday.
The Armani Group announced that the Italian fashion icon died Thursday at the age of 91. While Armani’s official cause of death hasn’t been revealed, his health had been in decline for some time — he was forced to miss his brand’s catwalk at Milan Men’s Fashion Week for the first time this year.
Wintour expressed her deep admiration for the designer in an article published Friday, revealing that she had planned to meet with him last month.
“I’d heard that Giorgio was not in the greatest of health, and because I was in Milan, I asked if I could see him,” she wrote. “Famously, and I always thought endearingly, he lived ‘above the shop’ (meaning in his vast and elegant Milanese apartment situated directly above Armani’s main design studio). We planned to meet there, yet as I was heading over, I got the call that it wouldn’t be possible.
“Instead, I get to say here what I would have told him that afternoon: that fashion was forever changed by him for the better, and that so many of us owe him so much,” she concluded.
Elsewhere in the Vogue piece, Wintour, who recently stepped down as Vogue’s editor-in-chief, applauded Armani’s work in fashion, saying it achieved “a kind of timelessness and clarity of purpose.”
“Those who were lucky enough to wear his designs on red carpets always looked elegant and modern and formidable—because he understood power and attitude as well as anyone,” she wrote about Armani, who dressed celebrities including Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and Lady Gaga.
She continued: “He made actors look like movie stars, and also somehow more like themselves. But dazzling as they were, those movie stars were only a part of his world: He was constantly turning up wherever you looked, striking out into different disciplines—music, sport, architecture and art—understanding fashion cannot, should not, be siloed.”
In a statement announcing Armani’s death, his company said he had forged a “vision that expanded from fashion to every aspect of life, anticipating the times with extraordinary clarity and pragmatism.” It added that Armani had been “mindful of the needs of the community” and “active on many fronts, especially in support of his beloved Milan.”
The fashion house described itself as “a reflection of this spirit” and pledged to uphold Armani’s values.
A funeral chamber will be opened in Milan on Saturday and Sunday, the company said, with a private service to follow at a later date.
Only days before his death, Armani had revealed his one life regret. “I don’t know if I’d use the word workaholic, but hard work is certainly essential to success,” he said during an interview with the Financial Times, published August 29. “My only regret in life was spending too many hours working and not enough time with friends and family.”
He also discussed what could be next for his company after his death.
“My plans for succession consist of a gradual transition of the responsibilities that I have always handled to those closest to me, such as Leo Dell’Orco, the members of my family and the entire working team,” he explained. “I would like the succession to be organic and not a moment of rupture.”
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