Outside Giorgio Armani’s teatro on Via Tortona, a queue of at least 300 people waited patiently in the rain before this Emporio Armani show. It was glaringly obvious they weren’t fashion people because fashion people rarely queue patiently and never in the rain. Instead they were young Milanese waiting to collect packets of seeds and soil distributed from an electric Emporio-branded Piaggio Ape. This was part of a sustainability-driven partnership named Forestami, with the Polytechnic of Milan and the mayor’s office, that is working to rewild the city.
The show next door was Armani’s first since turning 89 this summer—another milestone in a career brimming with them. While that queue outside demonstrated how powerful Armani’s cultural currency remains in 2023, this collection almost nostalgically demonstrated why. As many of the bags usefully reminded us, Armani founded Emporio in 1981 as a brand that shared the ethos of his namesake first line but was, through price and approach, open to everyone.
A wide-shoulder loose-skirt jacket in white tweed, a version of the Armani template that shifted the course of fashion at the same time Emporio launched, acted as the palate-cleansing opening look. It was worn above a crop top barely wider than a belt—that later was used as a belt—cinched with a large tortoiseshell square fastening and a pair of black pants and sandals. This was prototypic Armani styled with unpretentious ease. It was followed by a series of hammered metallic-jacquard looks, easy separates precisely defined. Gauzy shirts and overalls were worn over shorts and skirts. Those 1981 clutches aside, the models carried summer bags in loosely meshed leather.
The colour story segued from neutrals to a rainbow of ice cream shades. Light tailored jackets, sometimes double-breasted and patterned with mini chevrons, were fastened by strips of fabrics that doubled as belts. A suit in turquoise herringbone wool was lined with tufts of green wool. Split-yoke tunics, piped at the edges and checked, seemed drawn from the archives but felt fresh on the eye. The models in a closing section of colorful floor-length dresses and skirts teamed with heaped necklaces and headscarves returned at the end with Armani in their midst.
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