Glamorous? Moi? Cate Blanchett. Photograph: AFP/Getty/Gabriel Bouys
So, Giorgio Armani is poised to become patron of Cate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton's Sydney Theatre Company. What galvanising news for both fashion and the arts, two industries that - you could argue - haven't worked in tandem to the degree one might have assumed.
Sure, David Hockney has designed many a scintillating opera (though one is inclined to pass over the American abstract expressionist Frank Stella's epilepsy-inducing work on Simon Callow's West End revival of The Pajama Game some years ago).
But from the point of view purely of clothes, why shouldn't Armani have an impact on the Sydney stage? Just think: designer jeans could be sold in the foyer, alongside copies of Shakespeare and Ibsen. And for those tired of boring interval nibbles, surely an Armani cafe could be pressed into service, selling glamorous food to glamorous patrons for whom the theatre would be just a pretext for showing off their togs.
Some designers have become part of the cultural mix: Han Feng's gloriously exotic costumes contributed to the success of Anthony Minghella's Olivier Award-winning production of Madame Butterfly both here and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, while ENO later this autumn is mounting Aida with designs by Zandra Rhodes: Egypt, one imagines, will never look the same again.
Jasper Conran won a 1991 Olivier for his costumes for the Almeida Theatre production of the Jean Anouilh play The Rehearsal, starring Nicola Pagett, though critics were less entranced by his decidedly idiosyncratic work on a subsequent touring production of My Fair Lady. On film, Jean-Paul Gaultier's work on Luc Besson's futuristic fale, The Fifth Element, at least gave weary critics something to look at, however outlandish. You could argue however of film that most designers are better off saving their best creative energies for Oscar night: one knockout gown on the red carpet is worth infinitely more than a dud movie.
I have no idea to what extent Blanchett favours Armani over other designers, though this actress by now has been feted so often and in so many different contexts that there can scarcely be a couturier she hasn't worn. In a climate obsessed with transferring films to the theatre, perhaps Blanchett is keen to make a stage play out of American Gigolo, in which case who better to have on hand than the man whose costumes for Richard Gere in that film have acquired near-iconic status.
And given Armani's particular association with menswear, maybe the Sydney Theatre Company has in its horizons the chicest, sleekest productions yet of such blokeish plays as Glengarry Glen Ross, Mojo, or Dealer's Choice.
Whatever happens, Armani's presence amounts to clothes-related insurance if and when it comes to opening night of a flop. Are people really going to want to carp when Blanchett enters the room looking (quite likely literally) like a million bucks?
