L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2025 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS f o r m e r . A r m a n i ' s g u i d i n g principle was simple: first the wearer, then the trends to promote and the accessories t o s e l l i n t h e v e r y s t o r e s where he had started as a window dresser and sales- man. Pure talent, matched by rigorous commitment. He was the first to arrive and the last to leave. He built a pow- e r h o u s e t h a t r a n g e s f r o m sports to fragrances, restau- rants to hotels, luxury resi- dences to art galleries. In his core business, apparel, the group reached $2.9 billion in revenue in 2024, with 8,700 employees and 2,700 stores in 60 countries. Besides his estate – which has been keeping family and attorneys busy after the will w a s r e a d a n d t h e f a s h i o n h o u s e ' s f u t u r e o u t l i n e d – w h a t h e t r u l y l e a v e s i s expressed in the title of a book from three years ago, Per Amore ("For Love"), a v o l u m e o f " s c a t t e r e d t h o u g h t s , " a m e m o i r t h a t retraces the through-line of his career: work born of pas- sion and pursued with pas- sion. "Eighty percent of what I do is discipline. The rest is creativity," he would say. Meticulous, tireless, and attentive to detail, he stayed faithful to himself and to his guiding values while evolving in a world that never stops changing. He always tried to anticipate what was next, as c o l l e c t i o n s d o w h e n t h e y imagine what we will wear next summer while we are still on the beach. Out of "love" for his work, he followed his creations to the end: in May, he curated an exhibition marking twenty years of Armani Privé; the night before the opening, he checked the installation and adjusted every detail himself. In recent days, while recover- ing from a hospital stay, he was still refining the show scheduled at the Accademia di Brera on 28 September, p l a n n e d t o c e l e b r a t e f i f t y years of his career. That same "love" shaped a respectful rethinking of h o w w o m e n d r e s s . I n 1980, he launched the famous unstructured jacket, tak- ing the most classic tailored piece and freeing it, making it soft, enveloping, reassuring, comfortable, without losing the silhouette. Time featured him on its cover in 1982; by then, his success was global. T h a t r e s p e c t b e c a m e a mantra and, in 2020, led him to call out colleagues who pushed women into the fash- ion of the moment, uncom- fortable, provocative clothes that ignored what was right for them. He wanted new female archetypes in which strength, career, success, and authority were not shorthand for masculinization but for comfort and femininity. His independence, and his refusal to be bound by fleet- ing trends, became a full- spectrum commitment: "We must meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own. Totally sustainable fashion may be a utopia, but it is a utopia we must live with and fight for. We owe it to ourselves, to the planet, and above all to the genera- t i o n s t o c o m e . " I n o t h e r words, People, Planet, Pros- perity. As he put it: "I believe fashion can contribute to the renewal underway by realign- ing with people's real needs, while respecting the common goods we must safeguard: the social fabric and the environ- ment." He turned principle into action: in 2020, as the pan- demic spread, he was the first t o f o r g o a l i v e r u n w a y , because safety came before the show, before business, before Milan Fashion Week, and his plants had switched to producing disposable hos- pital gowns. Two years later, as the war in Ukraine began, he had his models walk with- out music, in a sign of respect for the victims. A rare sensitivity, and a way of keeping fashion in perspective. Signals, vision, a clear aes- thetic, an authoritative voice, and the ability to span half a c e n t u r y o f I t a l i a n h i s t o r y while building a company. "Style," he said, "is having the courage of your choices, and the courage to say no. It is taste and culture." Visionary and pragmatic at once, Armani anchored a way of dressing and a way of understanding fashion: "Elegance is not about being noticed, but about being remembered," he would say. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 Giorgio Armani greets the crowd in Milan (Photo: Fabio Mazzarotto/Dreamstime) An Emporio Armani store (Photo: Shutterstock) One of Armani's timeless and elegant collections (Photo: Shutterstock)

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