Iconic clothier Giorgio Armani, who has been credited with inventing the idea of dressing celebrities for the purple carpet, has died on the age of 91.
“Il Signor Armani, as he was all the time respectfully and admiringly known as by staff and
collaborators, handed away peacefully, surrounded by his family members,” the Armani Group confirmed in an announcement Thursday morning.
“Indefatigable to the tip, he labored till his ultimate days, dedicating himself to the corporate, the collections, and the numerous ongoing and future initiatives.”
Born in 1934 in Piacenza, Italy, Armani initially pursued a profession in drugs earlier than enrolling within the military in his early twenties. His first stint in vogue was as a window dresser on the Milan division retailer La Rinascente in 1957.
Within the Nineteen Sixties, Armani designed menswear for Nino Cerruti and in addition freelanced for a lot of different vogue homes earlier than launching his personal namesake model in 1975 with each menswear and womenswear collections.
From there, Armani started to quickly diversify his firm, launching Giorgio Armani swimwear, underwear and equipment traces earlier than introducing fragrances, Armani Denims and Emporio Armani within the early Eighties. Across the similar time, he started creating clothes for the massive display, famously designing the costumes for 1980’s “American Gigolo,” amongst many different movies.
He additionally arrange store on tony Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, hiring LA-based reporter Wanda McDaniel to deal with VIP outreach. In 1978, Diane Keaton accepted her Finest Actress Oscar for “Annie Corridor” in an outsized beige Armani blazer her character would possibly’ve beloved, and have become the primary Hollywood star to put on the model on the purple carpet.
Different actresses, accustomed to carrying robes from film studios’ wardrobe departments for large occasions, had been extra hesitant to take an opportunity on the brand new designer — like Michelle Pfeiffer, who famously responded to the model’s provide with, “I can costume myself, and who’s Giorgio Armani?”
Pfeiffer ultimately warmed as much as Armani and his garments, and on the 1990 Academy Awards, the designer outfitted the “Scarface” star together with 4 of her trendy friends — Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster, Jessica Lange and Jessica Tandy — prompting Girls’s Put on Day by day to dub the night the “Armani Awards.”
“These girls regarded highly effective,” Clare Sauro, a vogue historian and curator at Drexel College, instructed The Submit in 2016. “They stood in distinction to the massive poufy skirts of the time. That they had an understated glamour. It was the transition from ’80s opulence to ’90s minimalism.”
Whereas rivals like Valentino and Versace started their very own purple carpet outreach, Armani’s hits stored on coming. In 1991, Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford married in Armani outfits; the next 12 months, Jodie Foster gained an Academy Award for “The Silence of the Lambs” in a shimmering, pale-colored swimsuit by the designer. (Foster would go on to put on Armani to almost each Oscars thereafter.)
In 2005, the identical 12 months his firm celebrated its thirtieth anniversary, Armani doubled down on superstar dressing with the launch of Armani Privé, a couture assortment. “It’s a severe monetary funding, but additionally a logical, pragmatic transfer: extremely particular clothes like these are aimed straight on the Hollywood market he’s had a deal with on for years,” Sarah Mower wrote in her overview of the present for Vogue.
“In response to Armani executives, stylists for Academy Awards nominees have already been jamming the telephone traces in anticipation of the present.”
And whereas vogue homes are likely to fall out and in of favor over time, a sure group of A-list actresses — amongst them Cate Blanchett, Naomi Watts, Nicole Kidman and Foster — have been unflagging of their loyalty to Armani, and it’s not arduous to see why.
“Sporting Armani on the purple carpet means you’ve made it,” stylist Ali Levine instructed The Submit in 2016. “It’s basic, timeless. Nobody goes to look unhealthy in Armani.”
