In a fitting twist of fate the legendarily strong-willed Giorgio Armani, who towered over Milanese fashion for half a century and controlled every stitch of his empire right up until his death, got to choreograph his catwalk memorial himself.
Armani spent his final months planning a celebration of 50 years of his brand with a show in the romantic cloistered courtyard of the Pinacoteca di Brera gallery in central Milan, where an exhibition dedicated to Armani has just opened. “Save the Date” notices for the night of 28 September had gone out before his death earlier this month.
The anniversary became an arrivederci. Armani’s extravaganza went ahead, sadder but also grander and more spectacular than he had intended.
Invitations had issued a black tie dress code, along with a T-shirt with a black and white portrait of a young Armani. Several guests wore the T-shirt under a tuxedo. In the front row Lauren Hutton, in a white suit, sat alongside Cate Blanchett and a snowy haired Richard Gere, whose Armani-clad turn in the 1980 film American Gigolo made stars of both actor and designer.
“I had to be here for him,” said the designer Paul Smith. “He was a brilliant man, but also down to earth like me. The first time I met him, he was sweeping the street outside his store. If you think about it, he was probably the first person to wear a T-shirt under a suit. Now everybody does that.”
After a week of torrential rain the skies were blue above a pearlescent catwalk in the lantern-filled courtyard. The last collection Armani worked on was, appropriately enough, an unusually personal and sentimental affair. The clothes were a love letter to two of Armani’s favourite places: the historic Brera district of the city where he lived and worked and the island of Pantelleria, where he had a holiday home.
There was the signature softly assertive tailoring, in a double-breasted jacket with balloon trousers, easy dresses in the piercing blue of the Mediterranean sea in featherlight organza to catch an island breeze.
Anna Wintour this week described Armani as “one of fashion’s heads of state”. Armani’s favourite models from all eras, including Gina Di Bernardo, who starred in early advertising campaigns, walked slowly as a live pianist played.
The only posthumous change made by Armani’s team was a scaling back of the after show party. Instead of a dancefloor, there were dainty bowls of risotto and a tour of “Milano: Per Amore”, the first fashion exhibition held in the Pinacoteca di Brera, which places 120 Armani “masterpieces”, in the words of the gallery director Angelo Crespi, among the gallery’s Caravaggios and Raphaels, positioned so that they are in dialogue with the art.
A richly draped midnight blue skirt and bodysuit, worn by Juliette Binoche to the 2016 Cannes film festival, was paired with a Bellini Madonna in which she wears a robe of the same lapis lazuli blue.
Attention now turns to the future of Armani’s empire. The designer left exacting instructions for his heirs, stating not only that they should look to the sell the brand, but setting out preferred buyers as the French luxury giant LVMH, L’Oréal, with whom Armani partnered on beauty brands, and the eyewear company EssilorLuxottica. In the short term, the company will be steered by his family and his partner and right-hand man, Leo Dell’Orco.