Armani Privé: Metallic mode from the master

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jul 7, 2021

Armani, the designer who began the exit from live catwalks back in February 2020, returned to the runway with a grand statement about haute couture, with a very metallic spin on Tuesday night.

 
An impressive collection for Armani – who was the first designer to call off a live show due to coronavirus - that felt like the latest crowning moment in his long extended career.
 
While in Paris he even met with Italian president Sergio Matarella, before staging two shows of Armani Privé, his haute couture collection. His daughter Laura sat front row. 

Say what you want about Giorgio Armani, but in an era of hyper couture experimentation, the Italian designer creates clothes that women can wear with distinction in multiple contexts.

His big theme this season was iridescence – as multiple looks glistened and sparkled, in an ideal setting within the embassy - the Hotel de Boisgelin, built with élan and grandeur in 1732 by a senior minister of Louis XV.
 
Giorgio’s four opening looks - sleek silvery pants paired with snug velvet jackets, all finished with a matching silvery bows each glinted and glowed.
 
His women-friendly designs most evident for evening. With his marvelously draped and dimpled gowns – again in remarkable metallic hued poly-faille. For elegant soirées his precision-tailoring boleros came in abstract florals with an Asian twist, with hints of peonies, hibiscus and magnolia. 
 
Giorgio might be 86, but he keeps on playing with new fabrics like the new silk and faille metallics that have been such a huge influence this Paris season.  
 
The over-long show could have done with an edit. Admittedly, one could say the same about all his Italian colleagues who show couture in Paris – Valentino Garavani, Gianfranco Ferré, Giambattista Valli or Pierpaolo Piccioli. They all love big couture collections. None of them, however, have built a fashion empire to match Armani, the single most influential Italian fashion designer of the past half century.

 
At the finale, Giorgio took an extended tour of the catwalk, embracing Diane Kruger, Oscar nominee Maria Bakalova and Ashley Park. The California-born co-star of Emily in Paris looking splendid in a very natty chalk-stripe pajama suit.
 
A quartet of stars sat front row with Armani’s two nieces, Roberta and Silvana, underlining the sense of the new generation preparing the eventual succession.
 
Giorgio walking through all three rooms of the beautiful embassy, lingering amid the long and hearty applause, savoring the moment, as clients and editors reached out.