“I am me. The others are the others,” said Giorgio Armani with a shrug after his first show of two this morning. “When I create my collections, I think about women I meet everywhere, and not out of intellectual or sexual stimulation. Instead, I think of their faces. We can accept everything today, but that’s not me: I’m over seeing a joker walking around Via Monte Napoleone in her underpants. That’s when I hate the term fashion and would like to see it abolished.”
If this makes Milan’s maestro of maturity sound inherently conservative, you haven’t been paying attention: Mr. Armani’s success remains rooted in the radical disruption with which he reshaped fashion nearly 50 years ago. This closing collection of Milan Fashion “Week”—Armani told journalists that he’s asked, in writing, Milan’s Camera della Moda to look to extend the week, and moves are being made—epitomised his industry-shaping taste. Another radical move much appreciated today was that he started his show only 15 minutes after its advertised time (he turned the lights up and down again from backstage to emphasise he was ready to go) and presented again in his central, comfortable, and unpretentious Via Borgonuovo space.
Gina di Bernardo, who starred in many of Aldo Fallai’s defining 1980s campaigns for the designer, opened the show in a technically paneled shades-of-gray overcoat and pleated silvery separates between a fedora and flats that were embellished with the winter flower illustrations after which this collection was named. Loose velvet combats and soft tailored herringbones were among the panoply of pants worn above gently embellished and oversized outerwear (Look 12’s navy field jacket was an ideal example). Silk satin jodhpurs in black or navy were worn above loosely belted jackets: Some of these were accented with collar and fastening details based on Asian dress, an enduring Armani theme.
Eveningwear included purely silhouetted gowns in black decorated with dragonfly embellishments. These, Armani conceded, might make suitable choices for those in need of a red carpet dress. Before posing for a group photo with the doughty corps of Italian fashion correspondents who have followed him for so long (and who are so often foolishly disregarded by designers who land in this city), Armani had told The Guardian: “I don’t think I will ever stop working, because dressing people is my life’s great passion.”
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