Giorgio Armani - the women and men Fashion's expert - Giorgio is a businessman that know what women and men feel in fashion. He always hear what women and men want about their fashion. Giorgio began know as a fashion business.
Giorgio Armani was born in 1934 in Piacenza, Northern Italy; he received a bachelor and attended two years at the Faculty of medicine. From 1957 to 1964 he worked as buyer at the greatest Italian department store, La Rinascente. From 1964 to 1970 he was at Hitman (Nino Cerruti's menwear company), designing formal men collections.
At that point Armani realised that within the mens wear it was not possible to escape a certain staticity. The big chance was in the womanswear that it was booming in that years. Armani decided to leave Hitman to work on his own in that new segment as a consultant for other fashion companies.
He was very successful, designing for such manufacturers as Boulevard, Montedoro, Sicons, and Gibo. In 1975 he was convinced by his friend Sergio Galeotti to estabilish the company GIORGIO ARMANI S.P.A. giving birth to his label of clothing, positioned within the ready-to-wear segment. After some years Galeotti, who was in charge of the managerial part of the company, died and many considered Armani unable to survive to him.
“I had to acquire the entrepreneur status not being embarrassed in front of a lawyer language and capable to manage the company personnel”.
The turning point was 1978 when Armani signed his first important licensing agreement with Gruppo Finanziario Tessile, one of the largest apparel companies in Italy. Armani designed his collections and GFT took care of industrialization, production and distribution.
During this first phase of development Armani has been through a series of lucky coincidences. He began working in a time when women were beginning to understand, perhaps confusedly, that they would have to change in order to deal with society in a different way, to have the same opportunities as men. Fashion adapts to the world, and the world uses fashion to assert itself: its mentality, professions, ways of being. At the beginning of the 1980s these factors were completely different from those of the previous decade, and fashion has been able to express these differences. Armani has always been focused on women, living in Milan in particular, who in the 70’s approached the world of work wishing to realize something important. In Armani’s
view, fashion is not to dream but to live with: people have to be allowed to use fashion and change it; that’s why Armani doesn’t pursue the total look concept.
The jacket, the Armani most representative item, can be dressed with everything else, in many different ways and for many years. And the Armani’s jacket was a real revolution in womenswear and his biggest success.
“My women’s jackets date back to 1975, one year after my first menswear collection. I was surprised by the fact that my sister, and some of our female friends, wanted to wear the jackets, in which to move freely, naturally, like a second skin.
All my work has developed around the jackets. It was the starting point for all the rest. My small but crucial discovery lies in having imagined a garment which falls over the body in a surprisingly natural manner. I experimented with new techniques, removing the lining, or the interlining. I have modified the arrangement of the buttons, and radically altered the proportions.
What was previously considered a defect has become the basis for a new form: a new jacket. This creative procedure has generated a light jacket, as comfortable as a shirt, sensual even in its construction. I have been called the first post-modern stylist, they say that I have done for the jacket what others have done in architecture and art. Others have said that the Armani jacket has become a sort of antidote for the aggressivity and flashy colors of that type of 1980s dress which today we view with disdain. Like a sort of undeclared status symbol, which confers status without displaying the symbol”.
From the beginning Armani has always admired and was inspired by the French couturiere Coco Chanel. Her rigour, the culture of dressing well, with irony, coquetry, attention to the smallest details. Coco Chanel knew how to dress women in an elegant, refined, but also rational way. For the daytime, she dressed them in a practical, almost masculine way, while for the evening she wanted them to be super-sophisticated superrefined, super-feminine. An image of the woman which is still extremely up-to-date.
“I’m not a pure artist I want to channel my creativity toward that which can be of use to the men and women of today. I want to interpret fashion, to make it comprehensible, friendly, confidential, to bring men and women closer to the concept of elegance, in total respect for their personality and for the times in which they live”.
The experiences in the men’s apparel industry had taught him about the practice of the discipline, which he tried to translate into a style capable of expressing the radical natural of the changes in progress. Furthermore, in Cerruti, that was a leading woolfabric producer, he learnt the importance of fabrics in designing clothes.
My energies are concentrated in my hands when I touch fabric. I think that my constant, almost maniacal research on fabrics is one of the reasons behind my success. To model a fabric around a body is one of the most sensual experiences on earth. You have to feel it, it has to become one with the body, it is like arranging a drapery with pins.
The creation of a successful brand
After the success of his first collection Armani decided to extend his name over a wider product range entering into new licensing agreements. Furthermore, thanks to the constant flux of royalties rising from the GFT licensing agreement, Armani could invest on his image and on his distribution network. Over the time his name became a successful umbrella-brand.
Between 1975 and 1982 the following product lines were developed:
- · GIORGIO ARMANI - BORGONUOVO 21 (men’s and women’s wear collections, 1975)
- · GIORGIO ARMANI – LE COLLEZIONI (men’s –worldwide- and women’s wear - North America-1979)
- · MANI (men’s-North America- and women’s wear -rest of the world)
- · ARMANI JUNIOR
- · GIORGIO ARMANI UNDERWEAR (men’s and women’s wear)
- · GIORGIO ARMANI SWIMWEAR (men’s and women’s)
- · GIORGIO ARMANI ACCESSORIES8 (for men and women)
- · EMPORIO ARMANI (men’s and women’s wear collections, 1981).
“In my work I wanted to be more democratic, and to separate high fashion from the image of an applied art destined for only a few globetrotting jet-set millionaires. I thought about people. I thought about those women who cannot afford my dresses, but would like to own them, because they feel they are right for them, and I thought about a form of education of taste. And this conviction led me to create Emporio Armani, as a place where my style is within everyone’s reach”.
- · ARMANI JEANS (men’s and women’s wear)
- · GIORGIO ARMANI SPOSA (bridal collection)
