Born in 1934 into a humble family in Piacenza, a small town
near Milan, Giorgio Armani went to the local public school
and developed a love for the theater and cinema. After a
short stint at the University of Milan medical school, in
1957, he took a job at the Milan department store La Rinascente.
He worked briefly as an assistant photographer before accepting
a promotion to its style office, where he bought and exhibited
quality products from India, Japan, and the U.S., and, in
so doing, helped to introduce foreign cultures to the average
Italian consumer.
In 1964,
without any formal training, Armani designed a line of menswear
for Nino Cerruti. Encouraged by his partner Sergio Galeotti,
Armani left Cerruti and in 1970 became a freelance fashion designer
and consultant. He soon made his mark. In 1973-74, at the prestigious
Sala Bianca fashion show in Florence, he presented to great
acclaim bomber jackets that treated leather as a regular, everyday
fabric. This penchant for using materials in unexpected contexts
and combinations came to be known as a defining characteristic
of his genius. In 1975, Armani and Galeotti started their own
company, Giorgio Armani S.p.A., and founded the Armani label.
That July, Armani launched a revolution in fashion with his
unlined and unconstructed man's jacket. Completely loose and
informal, the blazer offered sensual hints of the body beneath,
marking a major departure from, on the one hand, the stuffy
suits that straitjacketed men in the 1960s, and, on the other,
the sartorial abandon of the hippie generation. The rumpled
jacket was an immediate success, and a new breed of tailoring
was born. Three months later, he unveiled an unstructured jacket
for women. Made with traditional menswear fabrics, it was as
simple and soft as the man's and bore a masculine authority.
With this alternative to long, flower-child skirts and classic
French tailleurs, Armani joined Paul Poiret and Coco Chanel
as an emancipator of women's fashion.
In the 1980s, the exquisitely tailored Armani "power suit"
for men and women came to symbolize an era of international
economic boom. With broad padded shoulders and widened lapels,
the look was inspired by the glamour of 1940s Hollywood. Paul
Schrader's film American Gigolo (1980) exemplified this trademark
combination of power and sensuality with the now-famous scene
in which Richard Gere pulls from his closet and dances with
an extravagance of shirts, jackets, and ties as he chooses the
perfect ensemble. The film secured Armani's fame with the general
public and marked the beginning of a long and fruitful history
of collaboration on films, most recently John Singleton's remake
of Shaft (2000). Armani has also created costumes for theater,
opera, and dance.
In 1982, Armani became the first fashion designer to appear
on the cover of Time magazine since Christian Dior in the 1940s.
He was one of the first designers to approach celebrities to
wear his designs, beginning with then Los Angeles Lakers coach
Pat Riley in 1988. Armani also invited Hollywood stars to wear
his designs at the Academy Awards, winning devotees such as
Michelle Pfeiffer and Jodie Foster. Today Armani extends his
talent diversely, dressing Italian and English soccer teams
and Alitalia airline flight attendants.
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