Attending a Giorgio Armani show is not about spotting next season’s trends – it’s about seeing what power looks like.
The shows are held in the company’s teatro in Milan, an architectural ode to elegance and restraint, all monolithic pillars and concrete walls. The catwalk is accessed through 12ft openings cut into the grey stone. As the collection is presented, the audience will occasionally burst into spontaneous applause.
According to notes distributed at Monday’s presentation, Armani’s spring/summer 2016 collection was an exploration of the colour red, making a statement about “a new femininity: it is strong and powerful, without relinquishing the possibility of soft understatement”.
What followed was as experimental as the famously understated designer gets: there were transparent trousers and pinky sunrise stripes that gave clothes an ombré effect, as well as a plethora of pink-toned grey shorts suits and boleros in tapestries of red, white and navy. The accessories were particularly quirky: hats with oversized brims with sheer stripes that enabled the wearer to see; silk neckerchiefs trimmed with hard red tassels; 2ft-long fabric tubes that fanned out from the neck and draped over the torso like tentacles. At the end, two models swished crystal-studded blue gowns to display red underskirts with hems that had been wired into a permanent state of undulation.
Armani is often accused of presenting fairly similar clothes year in, year out – his celebrated languid tailoring is far from broken, so why fix it? Even this season’s eccentricities took a very Armani form, featuring shapes and styling tweaks not seen on other catwalks. These will not be the silhouettes that are copied by the high street next spring, and that is just the way Mr Armani likes it.
Variously described as the king of Milan and the godfather of fashion, the 81-year-old designer has amassed a personal fortune of $7.7bn since setting up his business in 1975. Now his empire runs the gamut from couture to high street fashion to perfume and hotels.
So pronounced is Armani’s success that the rest of Italian fashion is often presented as a reaction to his work. Versace, set up in 1978, is considered the brash, sexy opposite of his taste and refinement; Prada’s intellectual take on fashion is viewed as a stark contrast to Armani and Versace.
When Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana were rising through the ranks, their enfant terrible status was never more pronounced than when they fell out with elder statesman over designs for quilted trousers. (Armani accused the pair of plagiarism. At the time, they countered “surely we still have much to learn, but definitely not from him” ).
Armani is, indeed, the king of Milan. He operates outside the whims of the fashion industry and has little left to prove.
