MILAN (AP) — Giorgio Armani, the enduring Italian designer who turned the idea of understated class right into a multibillion-dollar trend empire, has died, his trend home confirmed. He was 91.
Armani died at dwelling, the style home mentioned. Armani, probably the most recognizable names and faces within the international trend trade, missed Milan Style Week in June 2025 for the primary time through the previews of Spring-Summer season 2026 menswear to get well from an undisclosed situation.
He was planning a significant occasion to rejoice 50 years of his signature Giorgio Armani trend home throughout Milan Style Week this month.
Armani, who maintained a agency grip on his empire and collections till the tip, had been reluctant to debate succession, however had introduced a basis as a succession software to keep away from his companies being break up up.
He additionally indicated the artistic succession to Leo Dell’Orco and his niece Silvana Armani, who’ve headed the menswear and womenswear collections, respectively, for all Armani collections: Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani and Armani Trade.
Beginning with an unlined jacket, a easy pair of pants and an city palette, Armani put Italian ready-to-wear model on the worldwide trend map within the late Nineteen Seventies, creating an immediately recognizable relaxed silhouette that has propelled the style home for half a century.
From the manager workplace to the Hollywood display, Armani dressed the wealthy and well-known in traditional tailor-made types, normal in super-soft materials and muted tones. His good-looking black tie outfits and glittering night robes usually stole the present on award season crimson carpets.
On the time of his dying, Armani had put collectively an empire price over $10 billion, which together with clothes included equipment, dwelling furnishings, perfumes, cosmetics, books, flowers and even goodies, rating him on this planet’s prime 200 billionaires, in keeping with Forbes.
The designer additionally owned a number of bars, golf equipment, eating places and his personal basketball staff EA7 Emporio Armani Milan, higher often known as Olympia Milano. Armani opened greater than than 20 eating places from Milan to Tokyo since 1998, and two motels, one in Dubai in 2009 and one other in Milan, in 2010.
Armani himself was the muse of his model
Armani model started with Giorgio Armani himself, from the penetrating blue eyes framed in a everlasting tan and early-age shock of silver hair, to the trademark denims and t-shirt work garments and the minimalist ornament of his non-public houses.
Armani’s trend imaginative and prescient was that of easygoing class the place consideration to element made the distinction.
“I design for real people. There is no virtue whatsoever in creating clothes and accessories that are not practical,” he appreciated to say when requested to establish his clientele.
In dialog, the designer’s disarming smile and exquisitely delicate manners belied the powerful businessman beneath, who was in a position to flip artistic expertise right into a trend empire price over $10 billion. By no means a merger nor a sale, Re Giorgio (King George) because the Italians name him, was all the time his personal boss.
Born July 11, 1934, in Piacenza, a small city south of Milan, Armani dreamed of changing into a physician earlier than a part-time job as a window decorator in a Milan division retailer opened his eyes to the world of trend.
In 1975, Armani and his companion Sergio Galeotti offered their Volkswagen for $10,000 to start out up their very own menswear ready-to-wear label. Womenswear adopted a yr later.
The image of his new model was the liningless sports activities jacket, which was launched within the late Nineteen Seventies and have become an immediate success from Hollywood to Wall Avenue. The designer paired the jacket with a easy t-shirt, an merchandise of clothes he termed “the alpha and omega of the fashion alphabet.”
The Armani go well with quickly grew to become a should within the closet of the well-heeled man. And for girls, the introduction of the pantsuit within the govt workroom was all however revolutionary. Dubbed the “power suit” with its shoulder-padded jacket and man-tailored trousers, it grew to become the trademark of the rising class of businesswomen within the Eighties.
Through the years Armani would soften the look with delicate detailing, luxurious materials and brighter shades for his primary beige and grey palette. His insistence on pants and jackets led some critics to label his trend “androgynous.”
Armani hits Hollywood
The 1980 movie traditional “American Gigolo” launched each Armani and actor Richard Gere on their Hollywood careers. Wearing Armani, Gere grew to become America’s new favourite coronary heart throb, and “Geeorgeeo” as they referred to as him, the glam set’s hottest designer.
The Hollywood connection earned him wardrobe movie credit in over 200 movies, and in 2003 a spot on Rodeo Drive’s “Walk of Fame.”
Oscar evening all the time sparkled, with good suiting for the boys, and glittering robes for the women. The 2009 finest actor winner Sean Penn picked up his statue in a black-on-black Armani outfit, whereas finest actress nominee Anne Hathaway walked the crimson carpet in a shimmering white strapless night robe from Armani’s newest Prive couture assortment.
Different longtime devotees included Jodie Foster, George Clooney, Sofia Loren and Brad Pitt. David and Victoria Beckham have been the “face” of his 2009 underwear advert marketing campaign.
So vital was the impression of Armani model, not solely on how folks dressed however how they approached trend, that in 2000 New York’s Guggenheim museum offered a retrospective of Armani’s first 25 years in trend.
“I love things that age well, things that don’t date and become living examples of the absolute best,” Armani mentioned of his efforts.
Armani has gone nicely past trend
At present, the Armani empire has a military of greater than 9,000 workers, with ladies comprising half of the manager suite, together with seven industrial hubs and over 600 shops worldwide, in keeping with figures launched in 2023. Together with garments and equipment, the corporate produces perfumes, cosmetics and residential furnishings, in addition to promoting its personal sweet, flowers and even books. The designer opened his fifth multi-brand retailer on New York’s trendy Fifth Avenue in February 2009.
Within the realm of trend hobbies, Armani owned a number of bars, eating places and golf equipment, in addition to the basketball staff. Recreation time was spent in getaways in Broni within the countryside close to Milan, the isle of Pantelleria off Sicily and St. Tropez on the French Riviera. Every dwelling bore the trademark of Armani design: naked partitions, vital items, few knickknacks.
Like a lot of his colleagues, Armani tried to offer again a number of the fame and fortune he amassed through the heyday of the “moda Milanese” which put Italian ready-to-wear on the heart of the world’s trend map on the flip of the millennium. Personally concerned in a number of charity organizations dedicated to kids and a staunch supporter of the battle towards AIDS, in 2002 Armani was named a U.N. goodwill ambassador for refugees.
Galeotti died in 1985. Armani had no kids however was very near his niece Roberta, daughter of his late brother Sergio. She deserted a budding movie profession to turn out to be his director of public relations, and infrequently represented her uncle, who wasn’t a lot of a party-goer, at social occasions. In later years she was a key go-between with the celeb world.
In 2006, she orchestrated the top-billed wedding ceremony of actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in a medieval fortress outdoors Rome, whereas Uncle Giorgio designed the apparel for each bride and groom.
