If you just look at the Armani portfolio of product offerings, you will be gobsmacked—haute couture, relaxed suiting, jeans and T-shirts, beauty, homeware, café and hotels, chocolates, as well as Fiori floral shop et al. He was selling a “total look”.
On the brand’s 40th anniversary in 2016, Piaggio Italy came up with a Vespa scooter 946, Emporio Armani edition, to celebrate the milestone. I recall very few pieces came to India; I could not get hold of even one and the dream remains unfulfilled. He also designed a one-off Fiat 500 car.
Giorgio Armani was supposed to have a big bash to celebrate 50 years of his eponymous brand, just before he passed away on September 4. The story began in 1975, with $10,000 as seed capital and a small office, but with this, the maverick managed to serenade the world with deconstructed menswear earning him a net revenue of €2.3 billion in 2024.
He won the moniker of the master of “classic elegance”, with his “fluid” suit in the 80s, gossamer, lighter fabrics taking the stiffness out of menswear. Further, he got rid of padding. Dressing television’s most-watched stars in The Untouchables and Miami Vice as well as movies like American Gigolo and Goodfellas, he won the applause of Hollywood too. Interestingly, he added suave to two of Christopher Nolan's Batmans in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises (2008 and 2012).
The most iconic image is of Julia Roberts, in an Armani men's suit for the 1990 Golden Globes, channelling androgyny. In his 2015 memoir, Armani admitted that he wanted to create, “a new kind of femininity that forced men to look at women with new eyes”.
Armani loved basketball and he also designed uniforms for football teams: Piacenza, Chelsea and Serie A champions, Napoli. He has also designed for the Milano Winter Olympics and the upcoming Paralympic Games 2026; Italian athletes will wear EA7 Emporio Armani in style.
I’ve met Armani thrice in my life, and all the meetings have been eventful. They gave me a peek into his personality and life. The first was a chance meeting at Oberoi hotel in New Delhi in 1994, when we met at the lobby. Fortunately, the person accompanying me was an Italian who knew the language. It made the introduction easy.
I got lucky in 1998 when the Armani Casa team selected my company for product development and sourcing products from India, for the now-super successful Armani Casa, which was launched in 2000, with a concept store. Two years before the launch, we developed many hand-crafted items—metal vases from Moradabad, cushions, bed covers, quilts, glass from Firozabad. Armani oversaw the product development to the minutest detail, the effort paid dividends, and I was invited to the launch of the first store, which boasted of a sea of dignitaries—from royalty to top Hollywood stars and coveted models. I remember gifting him a book—on design and Indian architecture.
The visionary knew it was an untapped market, way back when few international fashion designers forayed into distinctive and lucrative verticals. Home follows fashion and takes inspiration from it. The design community that is adept at making apparel and textiles can rev up homes too. If you look within India too, many designers are diversifying their business into décor, weddings as well as interiors.
Our third meeting was when we were making products for the under-construction Armani hotel in Dubai. My company, Alliance, has developed many items (based on their designs). Armani briefly stopped by to see them at his Milan office where I was making the presentation. He had remarkable attention to detail and appreciated the prowess of Indian handcrafting techniques.
Armani was known for his flowing trousers, reshaping menswear, just a sprinkle of relaxed Neapolitan tailoring, and was the one to bring “Italian fashion to the world first”. “Elegance is not about being noticed,” he said. “It’s about being remembered.” He could not have put it better. Generations will remember his engaging contributions to the design world, for eons.