Giorgio Armani celebrates his 90th birthday firmly at the helm of his $17.4 billion empire
The Italian design maestro celebrated his birthday at work. In this exclusive interview, he says the milestone is only fuelling his ambition.
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When Giorgio Armani turned 90 on July 11, he celebrated his birthday with a day at work. “When I was younger, I thought I’d be retired at this age and enjoying the fruits of my hard-earned success,” he admits just days before the milestone. “But now that I’m here, I can’t do anything but keep creating and inventing and working. This is my life, I can’t deny it. It’s a choice I do not regret; rather, I happily accept it.”
To me and my fellow industry millennials, Armani was always fashion’s answer to Elizabeth II: a stoic and steadfast constant amid a business in relentless transformation. He is committed to his work above all, remaining unfussed about change, 90th birthday included. To coincide with this big day, his company casually announced that Armani will attend a fashion show for his main line in New York City on October 17. “Turning 90 is a very important milestone, but it also stimulates me because there are so many things I still want to accomplish. And that sparks my imagination and fuels my drive now more than ever,” he says.
Don’t miss your copy of the 84-page Italian issue of WISH magazine in The Australian available on Friday, September 6
Like most people who follow fashion today, I have never known an industry without Giorgio Armani. Since I began covering the shows as a fashion critic in 2010, I have got to know him as a compass of rationality and authenticity: someone who sticks to his principles, whose business has thrived despite his refusal to appease new-fangled marketing trends.
“I’ve never really taken part in the mundane activities of the industry; rather, I’ve always led a somewhat introverted life,” he tells me, reflecting on his relationship with the fashion circus. “What I like least about our world – and have never liked – is the tendency to create frivolous phenomena that are often of no substance, to give importance to creations or people that have no real depth or value. But this is something that happens in any industry. It’s always been this way, but today more than ever, if you know how to get your message across, you become a sensation, even if it’s often just 15 seconds of fame.”
In an industry that often confuses creative innovation with marketing gimmicks, Armani’s belief in the substantial is a value worth retaining. Since founding his brand in 1975, and establishing his creative signature through the 1980s, the designer has never strayed from his vision, nor his principles. I first learned what that meant when I began attending his shows. These are predominantly presented in his stark Tadao Ando-designed Teatro Armani auditorium in Milan – where the beige pillow on your seat never changes – and serving as seasonal re-endorsements of said vision. While Armani’s aesthetic gradually moves with the times, its frames remain the same: the monumental lines with the wabi-sabi; the ladylike grace with the masculine sex appeal; the uncompromising belief in order. As a young showgoer – I think I was 26 when I attended my first Armani show – that consistency can seem conservative, even provocative. Later in life, you come to appreciate his creative composure.
“The fact that fashion is far too tied to pyrotechnics and less to an actual offering for real people has long been one of my pet peeves. I think our work is still and will always be tied to the product, because the product is what goes into people’s closets and – if thought out carefully – changes their lives, and that’s what I strive for. Unfortunately, today’s collections are often created to impress and not to be worn,” he says. It’s a devotion to real clothing evident in his every expression, from the elegant Giorgio Armani main line to the youth-driven Emporio Armani and the more accessible EA7 and Armani Exchange collections made to democratise his brand. Even his most luxurious proposition comes with a sense of pragmatism: the Armani Privé collection, which was presented in Paris in late June, approached the idea of haute couture with decided wearability, from languid pantsuits to mercurial column dresses, each realised through the highest forms of dressmaking.
“Essentiality is a value that lives forever because it’s a process, a path of continuous subtraction, and therefore naturally evolves as the years go by,” he explains. “Fundamentally, my idea of essentiality always remains the same: remove what is not necessary in order to enhance the person and not the clothing. At the same time, it’s an idea that adapts to the times, because otherwise it would be outdated.”
His stern principles have made for amusing interaction over the years. One of the first times I properly interviewed Armani was about the time of the rise of Demna, the celebrated and often controversial artistic director of Balenciaga whose affinity for a broad-shouldered silhouette – not unlike those pioneered for women by Armani in the 1980s – was changing the fashion landscape in the mid-2010s. Asked what he thought of the shoulder’s return, Armani told me with no uncertainty: “Women don’t need that in order to be credible anymore.”
In the designer’s office in Milan hangs a mural of his own face next to the likes of Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior and Coco Chanel. When you’ve started out at the tail end of a fashion world that had the power to change the societal views of women and men, a shoulder means a lot more to you than a cool silhouette. In my conversations with Mr Armani – as you address him – in the past decade, I’ve always kept that in mind. As rigid as his opinions can be, they are founded in a respect for fashion tied to his generation. You can apply the same historical context to the military discipline with which he runs his empire, and which has earned him his astronomical $17.4 billion fortune against the odds of a poor childhood in the northern Italian town of Piacenza during the interwar period. Today, his nine homes – in Milan, Broni, Forte dei Marmi, Portofino, Pantelleria, Saint Moritz, Saint-Tropez, Antigua and New York – stand as monuments to that achievement.
Every European summer, he sails between some of those homes in his army-green superyacht, Maìn. One July, as the voyage was about to commence, I visited him in Portofino to do a story on the boat. It’s where I got my first glimpse of the private Armani, the one who cracks jokes on the deck, chit-chats with his uniformed crew (who all look like George Clooney) and is happy to introduce you to his close-knit group of friends and family. In the evening, when he spotted me having dinner in a Portofino restaurant, he graciously made a point of meandering through every table on the large terrace to say hello again. The next summer, when he heard I was with friends in Pantelleria – the volcanic island between Sicily and Tunisia where he traditionally ends his cruise – he invited us over for a bottle of Dom Pérignon. The house was buzzing with life, from nieces and nephew to old friends and his most cherished members of staff. “In my personal life, what’s really essential are the people I love and choose to surround myself with; the rest doesn’t matter,” he tells me. “With age I have become more selective – if that’s even possible – but in the end, I’ve always been. Of course, the older you get, the more you realise how many things – and sometimes even some people – are superfluous. You therefore try to surround yourself with only what has meaning and significance, and only those who really matter.”
The chosen few have made up Armani’s constant inner circle since the loss of his personal and professional partner Sergio Galeotti in 1985. Asked what Galeotti would think of his life today, Armani says he’d probably be surprised by what the industry has become. “But he was an extremely intelligent man, so he would be able to adapt to this new landscape. I think he would compliment me on how I grew the company we created together, when he was the manager and I was the creative one. I hope and believe he would be proud of me.”
Today, his nearest and dearest count his sister Rosanna, his nieces Silvana and Roberta, his nephew Andrea, and his close friend and collaborator Leo Dell’Orco. “Leo has been fundamental to the success of the company. He stood by me at a very difficult time in my personal and professional journey, and I cannot imagine Giorgio Armani today and after Sergio without Leo’s presence. He has an extraordinary ability to bring out my very best creative, personal and executive energies,” he says.
For decades, the fashion industry has speculated what a succession plan might look like for Armani, who still retains complete financial control of his company. Earlier this year, leaked documents revealed that no decisions – from mergers to IPOs – can be made in the first five years after a successor takes over. Judging by Armani’s drive, however, there’s no rush. “What I really like is the variety of things and activities that I have to be involved in; from the creative aspects to business and management decisions, there’s never time for me to get bored or distracted,” he tells me. “And that, for me, is a constant incentive.”
This story is from the Italian issue of WISH, free with The Australian on Friday, September 6.
