Mr. Giorgio Armani dies at 91: the difference between fashion and style

Mr. Giorgio Armani dies at 91 – 50 years of activity and operation: style, fashion and measure, pioneering sustainability, message, and Milan’s rough architects

50 years in business – between style and measure, and the intellectual society – Mr. Armani dies at 91

Giorgio Armani confirmed what might sound absurd to anyone in his field, when he repeated once again that clients must be taught to buy less. Armani defined a responsibility for the entire luxury industry: for luxury to be strong again, it must be ethical.

The dazzle is for luxury – but Giorgio Armani might just keep on smiling at it. Even today, that he passes away. In 50 years of activity, Giorgio Armani has replaced every dazzle with a gentle gesture. In 50 years of applause, Giorgio Armani – the company, not just the man with his personal story – has codified Milan’s style into fashion. Clothing, design, furniture. Armani’s mood is about balance; a balance built on consistency.

Milan’s style is rationalism – born with the Italian Master Architects – Piero Portaluppi and Gio Ponti, it was consolidated by Ignazio Gardella, Luigi Caccia Dominioni, and Vico Magistretti. Milan is Alessandro Rimini’s Rubanuvole, the Pomodoro’ Sole in Piazza Meda, facing the Chase Manhattan Bank by BBPR studio at the corner of a street named after a bookstore – Hoepli. On Milanese style, Giorgio Armani calibrated his own code and managed to place it across the world. Mr. Giorgio Armani used to climb to the fourth floor of Via Bagutta and enter my grandmother’s home – with Ms. Carla Fracci.

Everyone would have wanted to be there – me too, though I was just a newborn. They say that the game of invitations, so common today in this digital society, didn’t exist in that intellectual society of Milan. Word of mouth would have been the winning card – as it still is, the strongest form of communication – meaning when you have a strong project, you can remain silent and let others speak for you. Giorgio Armani dies at 91.

Armani, 50 years – ahead of research, a strategy against envy, and a path to sustainability

In 2016, Armani announced the phase-out of all animal furs; by 2021, the group had also abandoned angora wool. Armani positioned himself ahead of research – crabyon, a viscose extracted from crustacean shells, which may become the first truly biodegradable viscose; hemp – the Baby Hemp project, around the year 2000, was financed by Giorgio Armani. Hemp remains the only fiber allowing a textile company to approach sustainability with coherence (it is the only fiber that can truly be called sustainable today – and in the last century, Italy was the world’s top producer).

Through a clear statement on the phase-out of animal furs, we have hope that fur alternatives will soon be crafted from natural, not synthetic fibers: we know that a polyester fur can be more harmful to the environment, to animals and humans alike, than a well-managed, certified animal farm. We know that fur today can be made from wool, goat hair, replicated in silk, alpaca, cotton, and of course, hemp.

In today’s strategy, so-called influencers are no longer a focus – they stand marginally. A scientific, verified, and perhaps inhuman but objective fact: social media mechanisms are powered by envy. Success appears massive then and now. The question is: can allure, respect, and wonder still be built and maintained in a time when social media catalyze hate? Giorgio Armani has given us the opposite of envy. He conveyed care – for eternal ice as much as for the ocean. He engaged in the pursuit of sustainable industrial production.

Giorgio Armani, Per Amore – colors and tones, the message, and once again, measure

With Giorgio Armani, we understand respect, loyalty, and friendship, when lately he used to appear holding hands with Leo Dell’Orco. In our eyes, we saw a gentleman who rejected passive emotions. Armani’s autobiography is titled Per Amore – beyond the noise, only the message remains.

The colors of September, when the sun’s rays have passed the solstice and begin to descend. A year is like a day: morning light differs from afternoon light. The rays are no longer vertical; they cut through oxygen with a lucid tangent. Today more than ever – the day of Mr. Armani’s death..

He chose a color and delved into its depths, excavating every nuance, dividing it into pigments like notes in a chord. The result is a symphony of fabrics, veils, wools, and inlaid knitwear that multiplies. The words are Italian. Armani: a symmetry, a sense of completeness conveyed by the final vowel – Armani.

Giorgio Armani distilled in three drops of seawater the entire contemporary game of attitudes and certainties, messages and frivolities, anxious conventions and intellectual dullness – agitations that history teaches will continue to form the current stage – or rather, fashion. There is a difference between fashion and style. Fashion is fleeting, style endures. Fashion is a game; style is a discipline. Fashion fades, style remains and returns. We, as children, want more of it. For Mr. Armani, there will be one word that persists, as I say balance.

Mr. Giorgio Armani dies today. And you’re here, knowing you’ll see the same thing – well made – that you saw last year and the year before. Like every other year, your eyes rest – as if, right here, someone knows how to reassure you: everything will be all right. History, not fashion, moves in cycles – with its own hues of gold and pink, with the rhythm of the market. Giorgio Armani’s coherence will continue to bring peace to our hearts. Even today. The center of this orbit – for fashion – is Milan. And Milan’s center is Giorgio Armani.

You do find, in his lines, those traits of modern architecture that in Milan were drawn by the rough Master Architects. In Armani, there is identity – what Milan knows and can be. In Armani’s latest releases: the music changes, slows down. You see them go by, one after the other – those long-limbed, mellifluous, ethereal silhouettes. And before you realize it – a stray tear has reached your lips.